Abstract:

Objective To investigate the ocular symptoms of patients with early and middle stage Parkinson's disease (PD) and its clinical significance. Methods The videonystagmography (VNG) was used to perform ocular saccade function examination and observe eye blinks for 24 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD group). The latency of saccades, accuracy of saccades, and blink rates before and after treatment were recorded. Another 24 healthy people with similar age and gender were selected as controls (control group). Results For the PD group and control group, the latency of saccades was (292.18±50.51) ms and (237.40±32.78) ms, the accuracy of saccades was 89.51±10.59 and 96.69±11.00, and the blink rates were 13.21±7.55 times and 20.04±6.56 times per minute. For patients of the PD group who underwent treatment (n=19), the accuracy of saccades was 90.36±11.09 and 92.98±10.18 and the blink rates were 12.58±7.91 times and 16.63±6.98 times per minute before and after taking medicines. Results of statistical analysis showed that compared with the control group, the latency of saccades of the PD group significantly prolonged (P<0.01) and the accuracy of saccades and blink rate significantly decreased (P<0.05, P<0.01). For the PD group, the accuracy of saccades and blink rate after taking medicines significantly improved (P<0.05, P<0.01) and compared with the control group, the differences were not statistically significant (P>0.05). Conclusion The ocular saccade and blink rate of patients with PD were markedly abnormal and can be used as reference indexes for the early diagnosis of PD. Anti-PD drug treatment can relieve ocular symptoms of patients with PD.

Key words: Parkinson's disease, ocular saccade, eye blink rate, videonystagmography