Cerebral hemodynamic dysfunction in parkinsonian patients

Abstract

Aim The purpose of this investigation was to determine the cerebral hemodynamics in patients withparkinsonism and the influence of hemodynamic dysfunction in developing the lacunar infarcts.Methods Fifty patients with the signs of parkinsonism were included in this study. The patients weredevided into two subgroups depending on whether they had vascular parkinsonism (VP) (N-22) or idiopathicParkinson disease (N-28). The control group consisted of 30 patients who had ischemic stroke.The conventional transcranial dopler sonography was performed to evaluate the cerebral blood flow.To evaluate the cognitive impairment we performed the mini mental state examination to patients withparkinsonism.Results Patients with vascular parkinsonism have greater cognitive disturbances than patients withParkinson disease. In most of the parkinsonian patients the cerebral blood flow was decreased and themicroangiopathy was present.Conclusion In most patients with parkinsonism, the cerebral blood flow was decreased as a consequenceof microangiopathy. In our opinion, this led to lacunar infarction in VP patients, but can also bea risk factor for developing the same changes in patients with idiopathic Parkinson disease.

Keywords

• cerebral hemodynamic
• parkinsonism
• microangiopathy
• transcranial dopler