title: Associations between family history of Parkinson's disease and dementia and risk of dementia in Parkinson's disease: A community-based, longitudinal study.
abstract: Dementia is common in patients with Parkinson's disease (PDD). The etiology of PDD is still unclear, but exciting advances have been made in discovering pathogenetic components in Parkinson's disease (PD), implicating the role of genetic factors. It is, however, still controversial whether genetic factors also contribute to the development of dementia in PD. Thus, we investigated the association between development of dementia and a positive family history of PD or dementia in a community-based study of PD in Rogaland County, Norway (n = 219). The patients were followed prospectively with neurological and neuropsychological assessments. Dementia was more common in patients with a strong family association of PD (first-degree relatives > second-degree relatives > no family history; P < 0.05). However, time to dementia did not differ between the two groups. No associations between dementia in PD and familial occurrence of dementia could be shown. Further studies with larger samples are needed to explore a possible relationship between a family history of PD and development of dementia in PD and its potential pathogenetic mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin Wilhelm
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Kurz
authors.forename: Jan Petter
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Larsen
authors.forename: Jan Terje
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kvaloy
authors.forename: Dag
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Aarsland
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003704:Dementia / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D005192:Family Health; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics*; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012306:Risk; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors