The impact of mild-to-moderate cortical cognitive deficits on post-operative outcomes in deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease: Considerations for patient selection.

Introduction: Subcortical deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD) are well studied; however, deep brain stimulation (DBS) risks posed by mild-moderate deficits in semantic fluency, verbal memory storage, and confrontation naming are not as well understood. This study aims to better define DBS risk stratification criteria by evaluating whether pre-DBS cortical domain deficits predict surgical outcomes, including cognition, mood, quality of life, medication and motor function in patients with PD.

Methods: A retrospective study was conducted with 50 PD patients who underwent pre- and post-surgical neurological and neuropsychological evaluations between 2015 and 2023.

Revisiting eligibility for deep brain stimulation: Do preoperative mood symptoms predict outcomes in Parkinson's disease patients?

Introduction: Anxiety and depression are common in PD, occurring in an estimated 30%-40% of PD patients. However, the extent to which these emotional symptoms interfere with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) outcomes is not well established. This study examined the association between pre-operative emotional well-being and postsurgical cognitive, emotional, and motor performance in PD.

Neuropsychological test performance of Spanish speakers: is performance different across different Spanish-speaking subgroups?

Even though theories and research have pointed out the importance of variables such as age, gender, or education on neuropsychological assessment, much less emphasis has been placed on language and culture. With the increasing population of Spanish speakers in North America and the limited amount of clinical and scholarly information currently available, neuropsychological assessment of this group has similarly become of increasing importance. Though several studies have been published over the last two decades, an assumption exists that all Spanish speakers, holding education and age constant, would perform similarly regardless of their origin.