A Comprehensive Meta-analysis on Short-term and Working Memory Dysfunction in Parkinson ’s Disease

AbstractA previous meta-analysis demonstrated short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) dysfunction in patients with Parkinson ’s disease (PD). However, considerable research on the topic that calls into question the extent of such impairments in PD has since been published. The aim of the present quantitative review was to provide the largest statistical overview on STM and WM dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease (PD), w hile simultaneously providing novel insights on moderating factors of effect size heterogeneity in PD. The systematic literature search in PubMed, PsycINFO, PsycArticles, Scopus and Web of Science databases allowed us to estimate 350 effect sizes from 145 empirical studies that reported STM and WM s cores for patients with PD against healthy controls. The outcomes indicated general dysfunction in the visuospatial domain and poor verbal WM in PD. Subgroup analyses suggested that mild cognitive impairment is associated with STM and WM difficulties in PD. Furthermore, meta-regression analyses reve aled that disease duration accounted for more than 80% of the visuospatial STM effect size variance (β = 0.136,p <  .001,R2 = .8272), larger daily levodopa equivalent dose was associated with WM dysfunction (verbal:β = -0.001,p = .016,R2 = .1812; visuospatial:β = 0.003,p = .069,R2 = .2340), and years of education partially explained the verbal STM effect size variance (β = -0.027,p = .040,R2 = .1171). Coll...
Source: Neuropsychology Review - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research