Incidence and predictors of postural abnormalities in Parkinson’s disease: a PPMI cohort study

Axial postural abnormalities (PA) are invalidating symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD). Risk factors for PA are unknown.

We sought to evaluate PA incidence and risk factors over the first 4–6 years of PD.

We included 441 PD patients from the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) cohort with data at diagnosis and after 4-year follow-up. PA was defined according to a posture item ≥ 2 at the Movement Disorder Society-sponsored-revision of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) in Off therapeutic condition.

The Kruskal–Wallis test was used to compare characteristics of patients without PA (‘no-PA’), with PA at disease onset (‘baseline-PA’), and PA developed during follow-up (‘develop-PA’). To identify predictors of PA development, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed considering demographic, clinical and therapeutic variables.

10.9% of patients showed PA at baseline and 23.7% developed PA within the first 4–6 years since diagnosis. Older age, malignant phenotype, higher MDS-UPDRS part III, Hoehn & Yahr, and dysautonomia (SCOPA-AUT) score, and lower levels of physical activity were predictors of PA development at the univariate analysis. Older age (Hazard ratio [HR] per year: 1.041) and higher MDS-UPDRS part III score (HR per point: 1.035) survived as PA development predictors in the multivariate analysis.

PPMI cohort data show that > 30% of PD patients present PA within the first 4–6 years of disease. Older age at onset and higher motor burden are associated with a higher risk for PA development. The protective role of physical activity merits to be further investigated.