TITLE:
Efficacy of Pramipexole for Treatment of Apathy in Parkinson’s Disease
AUTHORS:
Hiroaki Oguro, Katsuhiko Kadota, Masaki Ishihara, Kazunori Okada, Shuhei Yamaguchi
KEYWORDS:
Pramipexole, Apathy, Parkinson’s disease, Depression, UPDRS
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Clinical Medicine,
Vol.5 No.15,
August
6,
2014
ABSTRACT: Background: Apathy
occurs frequently in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), and has a negative
impact on activities of daily living through loss of motivation. Pramipexole
(PPX), which shows preferential affinity for D3 dopamine receptor in the
mesolimbic system, is thought to influence mood and motivation. Therefore, we
conducted an open-label case-control study to examine the effect of PPX on
apathy in PD. Methods: We studied 36 PD patients (mean age, 70.4 ± 8.1 years),
who had been treated only with L-DOPA. PPX was added to L-DOPA treatment in 24
patients (PPX group) and other 12 patients continued with L-DOPA alone (non-PPX
group). The study period was 8 weeks. Apathy was assessed using the revised
apathy scale for Japanese. Motor function was assessed with part III of the
Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). Results: Seventeen of 36
patients (47%) were diagnosed as having apathy. In the PPX group, apathy scale
significantly improved from 17.3 to 13.8 at week 8 (p