ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION Anxiety and depressive disturbances have become recognized as common nonmotor, psychiatric comorbidities in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD), which contribute to additional disability, such as signifi cant impairments of cognitive, functional, motor, and social performance. This leads to reductions in quality of life, high levels of care dependency, and increased caregiver distress (1-8). Preliminary data suggest that depression may be an independent predictor of mortality in patients with PD (9). However, these affective disturbances are under-recognized and undertreated in patients with PD due to diagnostic imprecision, symptom overlap with motor and cognitive features of PD, complexity of diagnosis, health care access and resources, and under-reporting of symptoms by patients and caregivers (10-12).
