The Relationship of Sarcopenia with Disease Stage and Activities of Daily Living in Parkinson's Patients

Aim: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disease, presenting with motor and nonmotor findings. The relationship between clinical features and sarcopenia in Parkinson's patients is not clear, and the evaluation of this relationship is imperative in terms of preventing falls and disabilities. Our study aimed to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with PD and to evaluate the relationship between sarcopenia screening test and disease stage, walking speed, hand grip muscle strength, and activities of daily living. Material and Method: Male and female patients with clinically confirmed PD aged 50 years and older were included in the cross-sectional descriptive study. Disease staging was evaluated using the Hoehn-Yahr scale, walking speed with the Time Up and Go test (TUG), muscle strength with a hand dynamometer, activities of daily living with the Barthel Index, and the SARC-F test for sarcopenia. Results: Of the 52 patients included in the study, 40.4% were female and 59.6% were male, and the mean age was 69.86±8.14 years. SARC-F score was high in 51.4% of the patients. The disease stage was associated with an increase in SARC-F scores. The increase in SARC-F scores was positively correlated with the increase in the TUG test (p=0.028, r=0.306), while the SARC-F score was negatively correlated with activities of daily living. (p=0.000, r=-0.684). Eighty-one-point three percent of the women with low hand muscle strength had high SARC-F scores, and the difference between them was statistically significant. Conclusion: Our findings indicated that sarcopenia was prevalent among patients with PD, with its prevalence increasing in direct proportion to the progression of the disease. Furthermore, patients exhibiting high sarcopenia levels demonstrated reduced walking speed and impaired daily living abilities. These observations underscore the critical importance of incorporating sarcopenia evaluations into the development of rehabilitation programs for patients.