Personality factors and cognitive functioning in elderly with Parkinson's disease

ABSTRACT Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic and progressive neurological disease, resulting from cell degeneration in the substantia nigra, responsible for the production of dopamine. Objective: This study aimed to characterize the cognitive functioning, personality factors and prevalence of depressive and anxiety symptoms in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Furthermore, this study sought to analyze whether personality factors were predictors of cognitive functioning. Methods: The sample consisted of 30 elderly with PD. Participants completed a sociodemographic data sheet, the NEO-FFI-R (Five Factor Inventory NEO Revised), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, the Beta-III, the phonemic verbal fluency test and semantics (Animals), the digits span subtest of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults and the Boston Naming Test and the word list of the CERAD battery, the Geriatric Depression Scale and the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Results: The elderly with PD presented impairment in verbal episodic memory and executive functions. Most of the participants demonstrated low levels of neuroticism. The extraversion factor was positively correlated with executive functions and the openness to experience factor was positively correlated with verbal episodic memory. It was concluded that the elderly with PD presented memory and executive function impairments. The factor that most contributed to performance of the elderly with PD on memory and executive function tasks was the extraversion factor.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Chardosim,Neusa Maria de Oliveira, Oliveira,Camila Rosa, Lima,Manuela Polidoro, Farina,Marianne, Gonzatti,Valéria, Costa,Dalton Breno, Pereira,Aline Sória, Paloski,Luis Henrique, Irigaray,Tatiana Quarti, Argimon,Irani Iracema de Lima
Format:	Digital revista
Language:	English
Published:	Academia Brasileira de Neurologia, Departamento de Neurologia Cognitiva e Envelhecimento 2018
Online Access:	http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1980-57642018000100045
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