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Evidence of improved immediate verbal memory and diminished category fluency following STN-DBS in Chinese-Cantonese patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease

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Abstract

The present study investigated the neuropsychological effects of bilateral deep brain stimulation (DBS) on subthalamic nucleus (STN) in Chinese-Cantonese patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD). Twenty-seven patients were prospectively recruited from the Movement Disorder Clinic at the Hong Kong Prince of Wales Hospital. Neuropsychological evaluations were performed at baseline, 6 and 12 months following the DBS procedure. Assessment battery included standardized tests on global cognitive function, verbal memory, non-verbal memory, confrontation naming, visuospatial organization, attention and executive functions. Anxiety and depressive symptoms were measured by two self-reported questionnaires. Results demonstrated diminished performance on a category fluency task that occurred at 6 months post-operatively and persisted at 12-month re-evaluation; 29.6–33.3 % of patients showed reduction of more than 1 SD (standard deviation) at post-operative measure. Conversely, performance on an immediate recall task in a verbal memory test was found to improve significantly at the same time point and persisted through 12 months after surgery; 22.2–25.9 % showed an improvement (≥1 SD). Psychologically, anxiety symptoms were statistically decreased and the significant reduction occurred at 12 months after surgery. Patients who reported a moderate to severe level of anxiety reduced from 51.9 to 18.5 %. Our findings concurred with most evidences on the effects of STN-DBS on verbal fluency; on the other hand, we demonstrated improvement of immediate verbal memory that warranted further investigation.

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Acknowledgments

We sincerely thank all medical, nursing and clerical staffs of the combined movement disorder clinic at the Prince of Wales Hospital for the assistance in the conduct of this study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Psychology, Prince of Wales Hospital, Hospital Authority, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Venus Tang

  2. Division of Neurosurgery, Department of Surgery, Prince of Wales Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Venus Tang, Cannon X. L. Zhu, Danny Chan, Claire Lau & Wai Sang Poon

  3. Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, Prince of Wales Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong

    Anne Chan & Vincent Mok

  4. Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, Tai Po, Hong Kong

    Jonas Yeung

Authors
  1. Venus Tang
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  2. Cannon X. L. Zhu
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  3. Danny Chan
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  4. Claire Lau
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  5. Anne Chan
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Correspondence to Venus Tang.

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Tang, V., Zhu, C.X.L., Chan, D. et al. Evidence of improved immediate verbal memory and diminished category fluency following STN-DBS in Chinese-Cantonese patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. Neurol Sci 36, 1371–1377 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-015-2117-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-015-2117-1

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