Risk to develop psychotic episodes in Parkinson's disease under dopaminergic treatment: a case control study

Introduction:In the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD), psychiatric complications are common. Depressive syndromes have a prevalence of up to 50%. Psychoses are rarely observed in untreated PD but are a well known phenomenon in dopaminergically treated PD patients. Known risk factors are higher age, microvascular changes, brain atrophy, cognitive impairment, and polymedication. Case reports have described psychoses under all today commonly used dopamine agonists (DA), but so far no systematic investigation concerning the potential of the different dopaminergic drugs to cause psychosis has been performed. Meth…