Minor hallucinations occur in drug-naive Parkinson's disease patients, even from the premotor phase.

OBJECTIVES: The description of minor hallucinatory phenomena (presence, passage hallucinations) has widened the spectrum of psychosis in Parkinson's disease (PD). Minor hallucinatory phenomena seem to antedate the development of more severe hallucinations. Early detection of minor hallucinations may be useful for screening patients with more severe endophenotypes. Motivated by the observation of "de novo," drug-naive PD patients reporting minor hallucinations, we aimed to prospectively identify "de novo" untreated PD patients experiencing hallucinatory phenomena, and to compare their clinico-demographic characteristics with those of untreated PD patients without hallucinations and healthy controls. METHODS: Screening and description of psychosis was assessed by the Movement Disorders Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-Part I and a structured interview covering all types of psychotic phenomena reported in PD. Clinical, neuropsychological, and demographic data of PD patients with and without psychotic phenomena were compared with those of age- and education-matched healthy controls. RESULTS: Fifty drug-naive, "de novo" PD patients and 100 controls were prospectively included. Minor hallucinations were experienced in 42% (21 of 50) PD patients and 5% controls (P < 0.0001). Coexistence of passage and presence hallucinations was the most common finding. Unexpectedly, 33.3% of patients with minor hallucinations manifested these as a pre-motor symptom, starting 7 months to 8 years before first parkinsonian motor symptoms. The presence of minor hallucinations was significantly associated with presence of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. CONCLUSIONS: In this first study to prospectively analyze the frequency of minor hallucinatory phenomena in incident, untreated PD patients, hallucinations appeared as a frequent early non-motor symptom that may even predate the onset of parkinsonism.

Apathy in untreated early-stage Parkinson disease: relationship with other non-motor symptoms.

Apathy is a frequent and disabling behavioral disorder in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Its prevalence in treatment-naive patients with early-stage PD has not been extensively investigated. Moreover, whether apathy is related to other non-motor symptoms in early-stage PD is unknown. Our objective was to determine the prevalence and features of apathy and associated factors in a group of treatment-naive patients with early-stage PD. Ninety-five treatment-naive patients with early-stage PD participated in the study. Apathy, depression, motor symptoms, and overall cognitive efficiency were assessed. The presence of the main non-motor symptoms was checked during a detailed clinical interview. Group comparisons were carried out to investigate the association with apathy. Eighteen patients (18.95%) were diagnosed as apathetic, and five of the latter had concomitant depression. Apathetic patients had significantly more severe motor symptoms (P < 0.001) and a lower cognitive status (P = 0.032) than non-apathetic patients. When considering non-motor symptoms, apathy was significantly associated only with fatigue (P = 0.007) and anhedonia (P = 0.010), both of which were more prevalent in apathetic patients than in non-apathetic patients. In treatment-naive patients with early-stage PD, apathy was significantly associated with more severe motor symptoms and a lower cognitive status. After adjustment for these factors, apathy appeared to be a relatively isolated, independent symptom because the only other associated non-motor symptoms were fatigue and anhedonia.