Differences between the behavioral and psychological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease

Aim: We compared the behavioral and psychological symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD) in order to determine the characteristic features of each disorder. Methods: For this retrospective cohort study, we compared the behavioral and psychological symptoms of 288 AD patients and 189 PD patients (mean age, 74.6 +/- 5.9 and 73.0 +/- 8.7 years respectively). Symptoms were evaluated using the geriatric depression scale (GDS), apathy scale (AS), and Abe's behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia score (ABS). Results: AD patients had higher AS and ABS scores than PD patients. A gender-dependent comparison showed that ABS scores were worse in female AD patients than in female PD patients (p=0.001). A subscale analysis of ABS scores revealed that male AD patients were only significantly different from male PD patients in I item, whereas female AD patients were significantly different from female PD patients in 4 items. Among patients with mild cognitive decline, no differences in affective scores were observed. Alternatively, among patients with moderate cognitive decline, affective scores on all 3 scales were worse in PD patients than in AD patients. Conclusions: The present age-and gender-matched retrospective analysis identified greater behavioral and psychological disease severity in female AD patients relative to female PD patients, and greater affective severity in PD patients versus AD patients with a similar degree of cognitive decline. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.