With the dosage and the period of treatment chosen, transdermal nicotine patches are not effective as an add-on treatment for symptoms of PD.

Answers from a multiple choice questionnaire on the opinions about public sexual attitudes, on emotion from personal sexual practice, on personal sexual function, and on general health perception were compared between 121 patients with Parkinson's disease (mean age 45 years) and 126 age and sex matched community derived controls. Patients were more dissatisfied with their present sexual functioning and relationship, and perceived their general health as poorer than the controls, whereas opinions about public sexual attitudes were only marginally different. No diVerences were found for sexual function. Further analysis showed that the perception of sexual functioning and general health in younger patients with Parkinson's disease is considerably influenced by depression and state of unemployment. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2000;69:550-552)

The higher rate of depression explains our finding of more "harm avoidance" among young PD patients. According to a literature review the choice and performance of controls is crucial whether personality traits in PD patients may be assessed as abnormal.

In a prospective series of 34 incident patients with primary cervical dystonia (CD), 6 showed clinical or radiological signs of cervical radiculopathy (RP) or myelopathy (MP) during the course of their movement disorder. Age at onset in these patients was in the range reported for pure spondylotic cervical RP without an accompanying movement disorder. Radiologically, spondylosis was mild in 1 case and absent in 2 cases. The intervals between onset of CD and RP were shorter than in literature reports of RP/MP in dystonic-athetotic patients of cerebral paresis. Clinically, RP/MP in patients with CD mostly appears at mid-cervical levels, whereas cases with cerebral paresis are more frequently affected at higher cervical segments. We propose that RP/MP does not occur more frequently in CD than in pure spondylotic cervical RP.