Cognitive Symptoms

Most of the discussion on Parkinson's deals with the motor symptoms. These symptoms are the easier to recognize and usually respond to dopamine agonists (replacements). There are, however, many cognitive symptoms as well. Some (but not all) of the cognitive symptoms are: memory loss, depression and dementia. These symptoms are not discussed as much, are definitely harder to research on the Internet and seem to be more poorly understood in general. Unfortuntately many of these symptoms do not respond to dopamine and need different intervention.

The research on the cognitive aspects seems much more limited to me and the research varies widely on the frequency of cognitive issues, their possible causes and their treatments. It is an area of the disease that truly needs more attention and research as these symptoms have direct effects on the quality of life for the PD patient and their families.

Here is one useful webpage that I ran across while researching this topic.

http://www.waparkinsons.org/edu_research/articles/Cognitive_Changes.html