Cognition and Visit-to-Visit Variability of Blood Pressure and Heart Rate in De Novo Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Objective: We sought to identify whether the characteristics of long-term visit-to-visit blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) are related to baseline cognitive profiles in, Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods: We selected drug-naïve PD patients who visited our hospital at least 10 times with a baseline assessment of the Seoul neuropsychological battery. BP and HR were measured at each visit, and the variability of the systolic BP/diastolic BP (DBP) and HR was derived from the parameters of serial 10 office visits. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in PD patients was determined according to the proposed criteria with a cut-off value of z-score ≤ -2.

Results: Forty-seven patients with PD (mean follow-up duration = 22.3 months) were enrolled in the study. Compared with non-MCI PD patients, MCI PD patients revealed a significant increase in HR and/or variability in DBP.

Conclusion: This exploratory study showed that baseline cognition in drug-naïve PD patients might be related to the visit-to-visit variability of DBP and/or HR.