Psychogenic parkinsonism: clinical spectrum and diagnosis.

Background: Patients with psychogenic parkinsonism (PP), like those with Parkinson's disease (PD), may have tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and gait disturbances. Unusual features predominate in PP, but clear psychogenic signs may not be obvious. Because PP may be difficult to diagnose, identifying a wider spectrum of disease manifestations that point toward psychogenic rather than organic parkinsonism could be useful for clinicians.

Behavioral inflexibility and motor dedifferentiation in persons with Parkinson's disease: bilateral coordination deficits during a unimanual reaching task.

We evaluated kinematics of people with Parkinson's disease (PD) and age-matched controls during cued and uncued reaching movements. Maximum hand velocity, its variability and shoulder-to-shoulder coupling, quantified by phase locking value (PLV), were compared between PD (n=14) and Control (n=4). The PD group achieved significantly lower maximum hand velocities during the reaching movement in comparison to the Control group (p=0.

Pain in Parkinson's Disease.

Pain is reported by nearly 50% of patients with Parkinson's disease. In some patients, it can be more debilitating than the motor deficits. In order to identify the appropriate treatment strategy for each patient, it is useful to categorize pain syndromes as follows: 1) low DOPA (end of dose wearing off, diphasic, or early morning) painful states are associated with inadequate levels of dopamine receptor stimulation; 2) high DOPA (peak dose) painful states occur at times of maximum levodopa efficacy; and 3) many patients report pain that has no obvious relation to dopaminergic medications or may even be caused by other conditions.

Safety of selegiline with cold medications.

Objective: To evaluate the safety of the coadministration of selegiline with cold medications.

Data Sources: Clinical literature accessed through MEDLINE (1965 -September 2002), IPA database, and Drug-Reax System. The following search terms were used: selegiline, pseudoephedrine, dextromethorphan, MAOI, and drug interactions.