title: Visuospatial impairment in Parkinson's disease: the role of laterality.
abstract: Asymmetry is one of the unique and mysterious features of Parkinson's disease (PD). Motor symptoms develop unilaterally either on the left (LPD) or the right side (RPD). Incongruent data are available whether the side of onset has an impact on cognition in PD. The objective of this study is to compare the visuospatial performance of RPD and LPD patients. Seventy-one non-demented, non-depressive and right-handed patients were categorized into RBD (n = 36) and LPD (n = 35) groups. Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (ROCF) was evaluated by both the Taylor's and Loring's scoring systems. Subsequently, we also performed subgroup analyses on patients having short disease duration (≤5 years, 15 RBD and 15 LPD patients). The standard analysis of ROCF (Taylor's system) did not reveal any differences; however, the utilization of the Loring's system demonstrated that LPD patients had significantly worse visuospatial performance than the RPD subjects (3.0 vs. 2.0 points, median, p = 0.002). Correlation between the number of spatial errors and the degree of asymmetry was significant (r = -0.437, p = 0.001). However, this difference could not be observed in PD patients with short disease duration. LPD patients had worse visuospatial performance than the RPD subjects and the number of errors tightly correlated with the degree of asymmetry and long disease duration.
authors.affiliation: a Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Pécs , Pécs , Hungary.
authors.forename: Kázmér
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Karádi
authors.forename: Tivadar
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lucza
authors.forename: Zsuzsanna
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Aschermann
authors.forename: Sámuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Komoly
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Deli
authors.forename: Edit
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bosnyák
authors.forename: Péter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Acs
authors.forename: Réka
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Horváth
authors.forename: József
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Janszky
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kovács
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013028:Space Perception; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Asymmetry; Cognition; Laterality; Non-motor symptoms; Parkinson's disease; Visuospatial error