Risk of Hospitalization and Death for COVID-19 in People with Parkinson's Disease or Parkinsonism.

BACKGROUND: The risk of COVID-19 and related death in people with Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism is uncertain. The aim of the study was to assess the risk of hospitalization for COVID-19 and death in a cohort of patients with Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism compared with a control population cohort, during the epidemic bout (March-May 2020) in Bologna, northern Italy. METHODS: Participants of the ParkLink study with the clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or parkinsonism and people anonymously matched (ratio 1:10) for sex, age, district, and Charlson Index were included. The hospital admission rate for COVID-19 (February 26-May 31, 2020) and the death rate for any cause were the outcomes of interest. RESULTS: The ParkLink cohort included 696 subjects with Parkinson's disease and 184 with parkinsonism, and the control cohort had 8590 subjects. The 3-month hospitalization rate for COVID-19 was 0.6% in Parkinson's disease, 3.3% in parkinsonism, and 0.7% in controls. The adjusted hazard ratio (age, sex, district, Charlson Index) was 0.8 (95% CI, 0.3-2.3, P = 0.74) in Parkinson's disease and 3.3 (1.4-7.6, P = 0.006) in parkinsonism compared with controls. Twenty-nine of the infected subjects died; 30-day fatality rate was 35.1%, without difference among the 3 groups. Six of 10 Parkinson's disease/parkinsonism patients had the infection during hospitalization or in a nursing home. CONCLUSIONS: Parkinson's disease per se probably is not a risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalization. Conversely, parkinsonism is an independent risk factor probably because of a more severe health status, entailing higher care dependence and placement in high-infection-risk accommodations. © 2020 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Premotor antidepressants use differs according to Parkinson's disease subtype: A cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Depression is more frequently associated with akinetic-rigid/postural instability gait difficulty subtypes of Parkinson's disease than with tremor-dominant subtype. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study is to investigate the frequency of exposure to antidepressant drugs, as proxy of depression, before motor onset according to Parkinson's disease subtypes. METHOD: Based on a historical cohort design, the exposure to antidepressant drugs before Parkinson's disease motor onset was obtained from the drug prescription database and assessed in the resident population of the Local Healthcare Trust of Bologna (443,117 subjects older than 35 years). Diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and subtype (tremor dominant, non-tremor dominant) at onset were recorded by neurologists and obtained from the "ParkLink Bologna" record linkage system. Exposure to antidepressants was compared both to the general population and between the two subtypes. RESULTS: From 2006 to 2018, 198 patients had a tremor dominant subtype at onset whereas 450 did not. Comparison with the general population for antidepressant exposure showed an adjusted hazard ratio of 0.86 (95% CI 0.44-1.70) for the tremor dominant subtype and 1.66 (1.16-2.39) for the non-tremor dominant subtype. Comparison of non-tremor dominant with tremor dominant subtypes showed an adjusted odds ratio of 1.86 (1.05-3.95) for antidepressant exposure. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, non-tremor dominant Parkinson's disease at onset was significantly associated with exposure to antidepressants in comparison to the general population and in comparison with the tremor dominant subtype. These results support the hypothesis of different biological substrates for different Parkinson's disease subtypes even before motor onset.