Background: Long-term levodopa usage in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is known to cause several motor complications. It may be related to several factors such as levodopa dosage, duration of treatment and severity of disease.
Objective: To study the prevalence of levodopa motor complications and associated factors in Thai Parkinson's disease patients.
Material and method: The authors prospectively collected baseline characteristics of PD patients, details of treatment and complications from 3 hospitals in various parts of Thailand. These patients were diagnosed by UK PD Brain Bank criteria.
Results: A total of 154 patients aged 68.1 +/- 9.5 years were recruited. Age of onset was 61.2 +/- 9.8 years. Most patients were in Hoehn-Yahr stage 1-3. The common clinical features were bradykinesia, rigidity and resting tremor Treatments were levodopa (98.1 per cent), anticholinergic (29.9 per cent), dopamine agonists (26 per cent) and COMT inhibitor (9.1 per cent). Eighty-five per cent of the patients had excellent response to levodopa. However, 25 per cent of patients developed motor complications, which were wearing off (79 per cent), on-off fluctuation (45 per cent), freezing (42 per cent), morning dyskinesia (10.5 per cent) and permanent dyskinesia (23.7 per cent). Twelve patients developed severe levodopa induced chorea. Factors associated with levodopa side effects were earlier age of onset, long duration of disease, advanced stage, higher levodopa dosage and long duration of levodopa treatment. In the present study, age of onset was inversely correlated with H-Y stage, while dosage of levodopa was positively correlated with H-Y stage but inversely correlated with lower ADL score, which may be due to advanced disease state.
Conclusion: Levodopa motor complications are common in Thai PD patients. Wearing off on-off fluctuation and freezing are common forms of motor complications.