Psychological changes in Parkinson disease

The most frequent psychic disturbances in Parkinson patients are reversible toxic psychoses usually triggered by the antiparkinsonian therapy. One also finds depression and demential syndromes. The appearance of psychiatric complications shows a relation to age, duration, course and stage of the disease, drug dosage and occasionally to situational factors. The pharmacotoxic psychoses, to a certain degree, can be considered as specific for the terminal stages of the disease. They occur in two out of three patients and curtail therapeutic facilities decisively. Depression can not be considered as an integral part of the majority of Morbus Parkinson varieties, since its incidence and severity in old people afflicted with chronic disease, other than parkinson's disease, are not any lower. Dementing processes, in spite of the presently higher average age of the Parkinson population, show a more severe course in other cerebral diseases, like SDAT and MID than in the typical Parkinson patient, free from other cerebral affections. The additional appearance of SDAT and/or MID, with ageing is, however, equally possible.