Depression May Sometimes Foreshadow Parkinson's Diagnosis

By Denise Mann HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Depressed people -- particularly those 65 or older or with hard-to-treat depression -- are more than three times as likely to develop Parkinson's disease as their peers without depression, a new study indicates.

The new findings don't imply that depression causes Parkinson's disease. Instead, they suggest that depression may precede Parkinson's in some cases, said study author Dr. Albert Yang, an attending psychiatrist at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, in Taiwan.

The researchers looked at information from a national Taiwan health insurance database. During a decade of follow-up, 1.43 percent of about 4,600 people with depression were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. By contrast, only 0.52 percent of more than 18,500 people with no history of depression were diagnosed with Parkinson's.

After accounting for age and sex, people with depression were 3.24 times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease, according to the study published in the Oct. 2 online issue of Neurology.

"Depression is an important risk for Parkinson's disease, but mainly for [the] elderly and those with long-term and difficult-to-treat depression," said Yang, who is also a visiting assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "Our study does not implicate all depressions are risky for Parkinson's disease."

Nearly 1 million people in the United States have Parkinson's disease, a chronic and progressive movement disorder. Motor symptoms may include tremor, rigidity and trouble walking.

In the study, difficult-to-treat depression was defined as two or more treatment changes during the first two years after a depression diagnosis.

Depressed seniors were slightly more likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease than their younger counterparts with depression, and those with hard-to-treat depression were more than twice as likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease as those whose depression was easier to treat.

Depression and Parkinson's disease are known to travel together. Up to 60 percent of people with Parkinson's will show some symptoms of depression, according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation.

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Depression May Sometimes Foreshadow Parkinson's Diagnosis