The impact of SARS-COV2 infection on people in residential care with Parkinson Disease or parkinsonisms: Clinical case series study

by Chiara Sorbera, Amelia Brigand ì, Vincenzo Cimino, Lilla Bonanno, Rosella Ciurleo, Placido Bramanti, Giuseppe Di Lorenzo, Silvia Marino On March 2019 the World Health Organization declared Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Several recent reports disclose that the outcome of the infection is related to age, sex and can be influenced by underlying clinical conditions. Parkinson’s disease (PD) and other parkinsonisms are the most common chronic disease which can cause, directly or indirectly, the patient to be more exposed to other diseases, mostly respiratory system’s ones. Our primary outcome is to evaluate if PD patients are more susceptible than non-PD to take COVID-19 infection. Second, to detect if the infectio n course is worse in PD-COVID+ patients versus non-PD. This is a retrospective observational study on a cohort of 18 patients (13 PD– 5 non-PD), hospitalized in a Rehabilitative Unit during the occurrence of SARS-CoV2 epidemic outbreak. All patients performed laboratory tests, lung Computed Tomogr aphy (CT) and have been tested for COVID-19 thorough pharyngeal swab. PD and non-PD groups were comparable for age, gender and Hoehn and Yahr stage. Seventy-seven (77)% of PD and 60% of non-PD resulted positive for COVID-19. PD-COVID+ and PD-COVID- did not differ for age, disease duration and L-dopa daily dose. PD COVID-19+ subjects were mainly asymptomatic (50%) while non-PD ones were all symptomatic, mostly with respiratory difficulties. PD doesn’t se...
Source: PLoS One - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research