Negative impact of severity of pain on mood, social life and general activity in Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVE: Pain is an important non-motor symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD); however, it remains understudied. The purpose of previous studies on the relationship between PD and pain, has been to explore the cause, origin and types of pain. This case control study is designed for clinicians and rehabilitation specialists to effectively identify pain from the patient's point of view. Pain present in PD patients correlates with significant disruption to their daily lives, which was seen by analysing characteristics, frequency, severity and interference of pain.

METHOD: A total of 100 PD patients and 100 control healthy individuals, consisting of 66 males and 34 females were evaluated during routine clinical assessment followed by a neurological exam. The Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) was used to measure chronic pain in terms of pain severity, pain interference and pain frequency between the two groups.

RESULTS: It was determined that PD patients had significantly higher pain severity scores compared to controls (p < 0.05). PD patients with depressive symptoms had significantly higher pain severity and pain interference scores than controls without depressive symptoms. PD patients reported greater scores on Global BPI pain interference and all components of the pain interference subscale.

DISCUSSION: PD and depression seem to be correlated with higher perceived pain, severity and interference. These findings have not been reported by other case control studies, and warrant further causal research into pain, depression and PD.