Pain characterization in patients with Parkinson's disease

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Pain in Parkinson's disease is a very frequent complaint and may precede the diagnoses of the disease. This study aimed at evaluating pain in a group of Parkinson's disease patients from a specialized treatment center.METHODS:This is a observational study of pain in Parkinson's disease patients from the Clinicas Hospital, Federal University of Pernambuco. The convenience sample, obtained between July and August 2011, was made up of 24 individuals, being 17 males and 7 females, aged between 42 and 50 (mean=64.3) years, and 48 and 66 (mean=58.7) years, respectively. Section III of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale, Hoehn and Yahr (HY) scale according to the stage of the disease, McGill pain questionnaire and Mini Mental State Examination were used.RESULTS:Specific body region with most frequent pain was lumbar spine (50%). Categorized regions with highest complaint percentages were: trunk (66.7%) and limbs (37.5% upper; 37.5% lower). Most patients have referred pain in a single body region, regardless of analyzing specific or categorized regions (37.5%). There has been no significant difference in proportional scores obtained by each McGill questionnaire score component. Patients with rigid-akinetic Parkinson's disease had higher number of painful body regions. The comparison among McGill indices, according to predominant symptom and according to Parkinson's disease stage (HY) scores has not shown significant differences.CONCLUSION:In our study, all Parkinson's disease patients have referred pain. Although pain is one of the most frequent non-motor symptoms, many aspects regarding Parkinson's disease-related pain need further investigation, such as which would be the best pain categorization and which methodology could better distinguish different mechanisms of different types of pain.