Publications by authors named "Kay Yaw Tay"
: Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, primarily affecting the middle-aged to elderly population. Among its nonmotor symptoms, cognitive decline (CD) is a precursor to dementia and represents a critical target for early risk assessment and diagnosis. Accurate CD prediction is crucial for timely intervention and tailored management of at-risk patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) is a proven treatment modality for Parkinson's disease (PD), reducing dyskinesia and time spent in the "OFF" state. This study evaluates the long-term outcomes of STN-DBS in PD patients up to 10 years post-surgery in Singapore.
Method: We conducted a retrospective review of Movement Disorders Society-Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) scores, activities of daily living (ADLs), disease milestones, dopaminergic drug prescriptions, and adverse events in patients before and after STN-DBS surgery.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to analyze how motor, non-motor, and cognitive abilities progress in early-stage Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients, particularly those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI).
- Researchers assessed 205 PD patients over five years, comparing those with MCI to those with normal cognition, using various scoring methods to evaluate disease progression.
- Results showed that PD-MCI patients experienced faster declines in motor functions and cognitive domains, particularly in visuospatial and perceptual abilities, highlighting the need for tailored management strategies for these patients.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates data-driven subtypes of Parkinson's disease (PD) among Asian patients, focusing on how motor and non-motor symptoms progress over a 5-year period.
- Using various scales to measure symptom severity and cognitive function, researchers categorized 206 early PD patients into three clusters, with Cluster A (severe subtype) showing the fastest progression across various symptoms.
- The findings highlight the need for tailored intervention strategies for PD patients, especially those in the severe cluster, to manage symptoms such as mood, perceptual issues, and cognitive decline more effectively.
Introduction: The decision to offer deep brain stimulation (DBS) to elderly patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) presents challenges due to higher perceived risks and uncertain long-term benefits. Here, we aimed to compare the outcomes after DBS for elderly versus non-elderly patients with PD.
Methods: We analyzed data from our institutional cohort and retrieved publicly available data through a systematic review.
Background And Purpose: A genome-wide association study-linked variant (PARK16 rs6679073) modulates the risk of Parkinson's disease (PD). We postulate that there may be differences in clinical characteristics between PARK16 rs6679073 carriers and noncarriers. In a prospective study, we investigate the clinical characteristics between PARK16 rs6679073 A allele carriers and noncarriers over 4 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- This study investigates various factors linked to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Parkinson's disease, using a method called Shapley variable importance cloud (ShapleyVIC) to analyze their significance collectively.
- Out of 41 examined variables, 22 were found to be important, and 8 were selected as key risk factors for PD-MCI, including education level, hypertension history, motor scores, triglyceride levels, and a specific genetic marker (SNCA rs6826785).
- The findings suggest that managing triglyceride and apolipoprotein A1 levels may help prevent cognitive impairment in early Parkinson’s patients, while the genetic marker could serve as a potential target for new treatments.
Serum peroxiredoxin 3 is reduced in genetic carriers of Parkinson's disease.
J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry
March 2023
Background: Sleep disorders are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the longitudinal relationship between sleep quality and the other non-motor symptoms of PD has not been well characterized, especially in early PD.
Objective: To explore the value of baseline sleep quality in predicting the progression of other non-motor symptoms in early PD.
Background: Neurofilament light is a marker of axonal degeneration, whose measurement from peripheral blood was recently made possible by new assays.
Objective: We aimed to determine whether plasma neurofilament light chain (NfL) concentration reflects brain white matter integrity in patients with early Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods: 137 early PD patients and 51 healthy controls were included.
Biomarker characterization of clinical subtypes of Parkinson Disease.
NPJ Parkinsons Dis
August 2022
Article Synopsis
- A study aimed at identifying clinical subtypes of Parkinson Disease (PD) in an Asian cohort, involving 206 patients, explored the relationship between clinical assessments, genetics, and blood markers.
- Using hierarchical clustering, three distinct PD subtypes were identified: cluster A (severe), cluster B (intermediate), and cluster C (mild), which differed in motor and cognitive symptoms as well as genetic markers.
- The severe subtype (cluster A) showed lower frequencies of certain genetic alleles and higher levels of homocysteine and C-reactive protein, suggesting these biomarkers could help in further stratifying PD subtypes and recognizing more severe cases.
Background: Lipid biomarkers have potential neuroprotective effects in Parkinson's disease (PD) and there is limited evidence in the field.
Objective: This study aims to investigate the association between comprehensive blood lipid biomarkers and PD.
Methods: A total of 205 PD patients and 102 non-PD subjects were included from Early Parkinson's disease Longitudinal Singapore (PALS) cohort.
The alpha-synuclein gene promoter (SNCA-Rep1) is associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), but its relationship with performance across individual cognitive domains in early PD is unknown. This study aims to investigate Rep1 polymorphism and longitudinal change in cognition in early PD. In this longitudinal study, Rep1 allele lengths ("long" and "short") were determined in 204 early PD patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is currently insufficient long-term data on costs of treatment in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is chronic and progressive, and associated with substantial healthcare costs. Identifying patterns in healthcare utilization and cost may illuminate further discussion on early intervention.
Objective: To characterize long-term healthcare utilization and costs of PD in newly diagnosed patients managed by movement disorder specialists.
Various classifications have been proposed to subtype Parkinson's disease (PD) based on their motor phenotypes. However, the stability of these subtypes has not been properly evaluated. The goal of this study was to understand the distribution of PD motor subtypes, their stability over time, and baseline factors that predicted subtype stability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- This study explored how physical activity impacts motor, non-motor outcomes, and quality of life in early-stage Parkinson's disease (PD) participants.
- Researchers followed 121 PD participants using the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) to track changes in symptoms and quality of life over a year.
- Findings showed that higher physical activity levels at the start were linked to better motor function, cognitive performance, and reduced anxiety and apathy after one year.
Article Synopsis
- Subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) and affective symptoms are common in early Parkinson's Disease (PD), with a prevalence of 38.8% found in a study of 121 participants.
- The study used well-defined criteria to assess cognitive impairment and various scales to measure anxiety, depression, and apathy, revealing significant associations primarily in cognitively normal participants.
- The findings suggest that SCC can indicate affective disorders in those without cognitive impairment, while in cognitively impaired individuals, it may underestimate the prevalence of Mild Cognitive Impairment (PD-MCI).
Long alpha-synuclein gene promoter (Rep1) allele-carriers are linked to higher risk for Parkinson's disease (PD) and faster motor progression. Non-motor symptoms including autonomic, neuropsychiatric, and sleep disorders are common in PD. However, the relationship between Rep1 microsatellite lengths and non-motor symptoms in early PD remains to be elucidated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease with complex motor and non-motor symptoms often leading to significant caregiver burden. An integrated, multidisciplinary care setup involving different healthcare professionals is the mainstay in the holistic management of PD. Many challenges in delivering multidisciplinary team (MDT) care exist, such as insufficient expertise among different healthcare professionals, poor interdisciplinary collaboration, and communication.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The main motor subtypes of Parkinson's disease (PD) include tremor-dominant (TD) and postural instability gait disorder (PIGD), with varying disease course that warrant the development of biomarkers capable of predicting progression according to motor subtype. The PIGD subtype is associated with a poorer prognosis, hence identification of a biomarker associated with PIGD is clinically relevant. Neurofilament light (NfL) chain is a potential biomarker of disease severity in neurological disorders including PD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The aim of this study is to compare Parkinson's disease (PD) treatment practices by movement disorder (MD) specialists across a decade, and to determine the factors that influence drug choice for the motor symptoms of PD in newly diagnosed drug-naïve patients.
Methods: This prospective temporal analysis included patients seen at the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore and diagnosed with PD by MD specialists in the years 2007 and 2017. Primary outcomes were use of specific PD drugs and changes in drug-prescribing patterns.
Objective: The success of clinical research and tissue donation programs are highly dependent on recruitment of willing volunteers. A comprehensive survey of patient preferences and attitudes can help identify and address barriers hindering the recruitment for research.
Method: This is a cross-sectional study on 105 Parkinson's disease patients who completed an interviewer-administered questionnaire.
Brain donations are imperative for research; understanding possible barriers to entry is required to improve brain donation rates. While a few surveys have studied attitudes towards brain banking in patients with neurodegenerative disorders, none have surveyed patients with chronic neurological disorders but without neurodegeneration. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 187 participants, with both neurodegenerative (n = 122) and non-neurodegenerative disorders (n = 65), to compare their attitudes and preferences towards brain donation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- - Parkinson's disease (PD) is marked by the presence of Lewy bodies with α-synuclein and ubiquitin aggregates, which may be linked to a breakdown in the ubiquitin proteasome system.
- - The study measured plasma UCHL1 levels in 291 people, finding that those with moderate PD (H&Y stage >2) had significantly higher UCHL1 levels compared to those with milder PD and healthy controls.
- - UCHL1 levels were found to correlate with motor function in PD patients, but not global cognition, suggesting its potential role in PD progression that needs further investigation in future studies.