Are Verbal Fluency and Nonliteral Language Comprehension Deficits Related to Depressive Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease?

Table 1

Demographic and clinical characteristics of healthy controls (HCs) and participants with Parkinson’s disease with (PDDS) and without (PD) depressive symptoms.

Features	Groups			Significant difference with HC
	HC; Mean (SD)	PD; Mean (SD)	PDDS; Mean (SD)
Age (years)	61,94 (5,62)	61,81 (4,81)	64,77 (6,00)	NS^a
Education (years)	14,85 (3,37)	13,00 (2,72)	14,23 (2,77)	NS
Gender (% men)	30,77	50,00	76,92	PDDS*
Disease duration (years)	—	4,42 (3,00)	6,31 (4,25)	NS
Age at onset (years)	—	57,39 (6,86)	58,46 (6,32)	NS
Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)	28,38 (1,27)	28,08 (1,16)	27,15 (1,77)	NS
UPDRS-III	—	26,58 (7,88)	33,00 (9,24)	NS
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)	2,92 (2,25)	4,17 (2,12)	14,54 (5,32)	PDDS***

All tests were performed without dopaminergic medication.
^aNS (non-significant); *𝑃<0.05; ***𝑃<0.001.
No results are significantly different between PDDS and PD except for BDI (𝑃<0.001).
UPDRS: Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale.