News Releases & Research Results Determining the risk of Parkinson’s disease and dementia during annual checkups―A step forward in prevention and early detection

The results of research conducted by Professor Masahisa Katsuno and Visiting Researcher Makoto Hattori of the Department of Neurology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, as well as Dr. Yukihiko Washimi, the Director of the National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology.

• The aim of research was to develop a questionnaire survey to identify prodromal symptoms of Lewy body disease, an intractable neurodegenerative disease that encompasses Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, as well as to develop a registry of individuals who are at high risk of Lewy body disease. This research enrolled annual health checkup examinees (12,378 individuals/ year) at the Kumiai Kosei Hospital (Takayama city, Gifu) and Daido Clinics (Nagoya city, Aichi).
• 5.7% of examinees over the age of 50 had more than two prodromal symptoms and were identified as being at risk. Male at-risk subjects showed lower values of hemoglobin and cholesterol, which are characteristic of the prodromal stage of Levy body disease.
• The findings suggest that it is possible to identify individuals who are at risk of neurological diseases by administering a simple questionnaire to individuals in the health checkup registry. Clinical studies with at-risk patients are planned to establish preemptive treatment strategies for Lewy body disease.

This research project was conducted with the support of Research and Development Grants for Dementia by AMED.

The results of research were published in the Journal of Neurology, an American scientific journal, on February 7.

Hattori M., et al. Subjects at risk of Parkinson’s disease in health checkup examinees: cross-sectional analysis of baseline data of NaT-PROBE study Journal of Neurology
DOI：10.1007/s00415-020-09714-6