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The relationship between impairment of voluntary movements and cognitive impairment in Huntington’s disease

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Abstract

The relationship between motor symptoms and cognitive impairment in Huntington’s disease (HD) is still discussed. We analysed 45 HD patients in various stages using Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale motor subscale (voluntary and involuntary components were evaluated separately), verbal memory and executive functions tests. Partial correlations controlling for HD duration and age were used to estimate the relationships among factor scores for motor and cognitive impairment. Voluntary components of motor performance were found to be significantly correlated with verbal short-term memory disturbances (r = −0.361, P = 0.03), with tests of executive functions more dependent on motor performance (r = 0.640, P < 0.01) and also with tests of executive functions less dependent on motor performance (r = 0.461, P < 0.01). Involuntary components did not correlate significantly with any part of cognitive performance.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Prof. David Craufurd for his helpful comments. This study was supported by a grant from the Czech Ministry of Health, reg. No IGA MZ CR NR8937-4 and NR/9215-3, and from Czech Ministry of Education, Research Program MSM0021620849 and MSM 0021620864.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1st Medical Faculty, Department of Neurology, Charles University, Katerinská 30, 12100, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Jiří Klempíř, Olga Klempířová, Nataša Špačková & Jan Roth

  2. Faculty of Physical Education and Sport, Department of Kinanthropology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jan Štochl

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  1. Jiří Klempíř
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Correspondence to Jiří Klempíř.

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Klempíř, J., Klempířová, O., Štochl, J. et al. The relationship between impairment of voluntary movements and cognitive impairment in Huntington’s disease. J Neurol 256, 1629–1633 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-009-5164-9

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