Background : Parkinson''s disease (PD) is a heterogeneous , progressive and neurodegenerative disease . Pain is one of frequently reported nonmotor symptoms in PD and inappropriately controlled pain can cause depression, diminished quality of life. There is a lack of attention to pain in PD because pain is relatively subjective symptom and main treatment of PD is focused on managing motor symptoms. There are no clear pain management guideline as well as each therapeutic realities have some limitations. While Study of pain in PD has been reported more and more, those studies were poorly documented in Korea.
Objectives : To investigate prevalence of pain, pain characteristics, association between clinical features and pain, efficacy of Korean medical treatment for PD with pain.
Methods : We performed a retrospective review of the medical records for patients diagnosed with Parkinson''s disease between 2012 and 2019 at Gangdong kyunghee university korean medicine hosptal in South Korea.
Results : Of 172 PD patients, 147 patients(85.5%) reported pain. Female PD patients more frequently reported pain than male(P=0.03). Sixty nine point three percent(69.3%) of patients complaining about musculoskeletal pain, and musculoskeletal pain show significant difference depending on the PD motor subtype(P=0.039).
Pain was located mainly in the leg(57.8%) or back(34.7%). 22 patients with KPPS scores at least twice were analysed for evaluating efficacy of Korean medicine on pain in PD. Mean total scores before and after korean medical treatment were 15.23±11.01 and 9.2±8.7, respectively, and mean difference between before/after total scores was 6.0±5.8(P<0.001). Specifically, score of radicular pain was significantly decreased(P=0.048).
Conclusions : In comparision with general population, PD patients has high prevelence of pain. This study suggests Korean Medicine could be beneficial for PD by reducing pain. For clinical efficacy, further study as a large-sample cohort study, RCTs should be done to clarify pathological pain relief mechanism and analgesic effect of Korean Medicine.