SEND-PD in Parkinsonian Syndromes: Results of a Monocentric Cross-Sectional Study

Linda Veith Sanches,1,* Stephan Greten,1,* Johanna Doll-Lee,1 Sophia Marie Rogozinski,1 Johanne Heine,1 Lea Krey,1 Sarana Ulaganathan,1 Ida Jensen,1,2 Matthias Höllerhage,1 Sam Sadeghi Sani,1 Günter U Höglinger,1– 4 Florian Wegner,1 Martin Klietz1 1Department of Neurology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany; 2Department of Neurology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) Munich, Munich, Germany; 3Munich Cluster for Systems Neurology, SyNergy, Munich, Germany; 4German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, DZNE, Munich, Germany*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Stephan Greten, Department of Neurology, Hannover Medical School, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, Hannover, 30625, Germany, Tel +49 511 532-6462, Fax +49 511 532-6677, Email [email protected]: Neuropsychiatric symptoms in particular impair health-related quality of life (QoL) of patients with Parkinson’s disease and atypical Parkinsonian syndromes. For this reason, various scales have been developed for detection of neuropsychiatric symptoms, such as the Scale for evaluation of neuropsychiatric disorders in Parkinson’s disease (SEND-PD).Objective: First, the objective of this study was to explore the interrelation between the SEND-PD and clinical parameters in patients with Parkinson’s disease and thus confirm its validity. In addition, the applicability in a well-defined cohort of patients with atypical Parkinsonian syndromes was investigated for the very first time.Methods: A clinically well-defined cohort of 122 patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), 55 patients with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and 33 patients with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) were analyzed. First, the SEND-PD was correlated with established disease-specific scores in patients with PD. Next, the results of the SEND-PD were compared between the different Parkinsonian syndromes.Results: The SEND-PD showed a strong significant correlation with several scores, especially the UPDRS I (Rho = 0.655) and GDS-15 (Rho = 0.645). Depressive burden was significantly higher in MSA patients in comparison to the PD patient cohort (PD, 3.8 ± 3.3; MSA, 5.45 ± 3.87), while PSP patients showed significantly less psychotic (PD 1.6 ± 2.1; PSP 0.6 ± 0.9) and impulse control disorders (PD 0.3 ± 1.0; PSP 0.02 ± 0.1).Conclusion: The SEND-PD is a useful, brief and highly applicable screening tool for neuropsychiatric symptoms in PD, but not in atypical Parkinsonism, as their unique neuropsychiatric symptom composition is not fully captured.Keywords: neuropsychiatric symptoms, SEND-PD, Parkinsonian syndromes