Neuropsychological Outcomes After Psychosocial Intervention for Depression in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe neuropsychological outcomes in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) following their participation in an NIH-sponsored, randomized-controlled trial of cognitive-behavioral treatment for depression. Improvements in mood were associated with modest gains in verbal memory and executive functioning, over the 10-week treatment period, and accounted for greater variance in neuropsychological outcomes at the end-of-treatment, than other known correlates of cognitive functioning in PD, such as disease severity, age, and education. Baseline working memory and executive skills were also associated with depression improvement over time.

New clinical trials for nonmotor manifestations of Parkinson's disease

“…Dobkin and colleagues previously reported, in an RCT, that CBT is effective for treatment of depression in PD . The researchers now also show, in a post‐hoc analysis, that improvements in mood were associated with modest gains in verbal memory and executive functioning over the 10‐week treatment period . Troeung and colleagues also reported, in a small randomized study, that group CBT was more effective for depression and anxiety in PD in patients randomized to treatment than waiting list after 8 weeks, and that this effect was maintained for 6 months.…”

How do people live life successfully with Parkinson's disease?

“…The majority of the work is quantitative and the researchers have focused on aspects such as neuropsychological outcomes (Dobkin et al . ), illness beliefs (Simpson et al . ) and coping (Hurt et al .…”

The Relationship Between Telephone-Administered Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Depression and Neuropsychological Functioning in Parkinson’s Disease

“…Overall, results of this study, viewed in the context of neuropsychological findings from our previous face-to-face CBT trial {4}, suggest that intact working memory may be a prerequisite to the derivation of optimal benefit from CBT, while verbal memory may be particularly important for telephone-based treatment approaches, in PD. Traditional methods of psychotherapy delivery (i.e., face-to-face) may be warranted for PD patients with more extensive cognitive limitations.…”

“…In this RCT, we demonstrated that improvements in mood were associated with modest gains in verbal memory and executive functioning following the psychosocial treatment of dPD {4}. We also found that baseline working memory and executive skills were related to depression improvement over time {4}. This letter is the first to describe the impact of telephone-based CBT for depression on neuropsychological functioning in PD.…”

“…We recently conducted an NIH-sponsored randomized-controlled trial (RCT) of face-to-face Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) plus clinical monitoring, versus clinical monitoring only, for depression in Parkinson’s disease (dPD) {3}. In this RCT, we demonstrated that improvements in mood were associated with modest gains in verbal memory and executive functioning following the psychosocial treatment of dPD {4}. We also found that baseline working memory and executive skills were related to depression improvement over time {4}.…”