EAN 2025 | Motor complications, anxiety, and sleep disturbances predict chronic pain in people with Parkinson’s
Katarina Rukavina, MD, PhD, Movement Disorders Hospital, Beelitz, Germany, discusses pain in Parkinson’s disease, emphasizing that it is distinct from pain in the general population. Dr Rukavina discusses a study that found that motor complications, anxiety, and sleep disturbances are predictors of chronic pain in people with Parkinson’s. This interview took place at the 11th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN 2025) in Helsinki, Finland.
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Transcript
Well, pain is a very, very frequent symptom in people with Parkinson’s disease. Chronic pain affects over two-thirds of people with Parkinson’s. And in studies, people with Parkinson’s consistently reported that it is one of the symptoms that bothered them the most. So this pain really has a significant effect on their quality of life, it prevents them from performing their activities of daily living...
Well, pain is a very, very frequent symptom in people with Parkinson’s disease. Chronic pain affects over two-thirds of people with Parkinson’s. And in studies, people with Parkinson’s consistently reported that it is one of the symptoms that bothered them the most. So this pain really has a significant effect on their quality of life, it prevents them from performing their activities of daily living. So it is really, really an important symptom. The problem is that pain in people with Parkinson’s is much different than pain in the general population because it is not only a consequence of motor symptoms but also it arises from the neurodegeneration that is specific to people with Parkinson’s. And because of this, if we use the treatments for pain that are used in the general population for people with Parkinson’s, those won’t be that successful. What we have investigated, keeping in mind the main concept that pain needs to be treated holistically, we have investigated what are the symptoms that are also common in people who have pain. And we have found a significant relationship, or better said, we have found that a set of symptoms including motor complications, anxiety, and sleep disturbances work as predictors of chronic pain in people with Parkinson’s. So this relationship has already been observed between the pain and sleep issues, pain and anxiety. It is possible that it is due to the joint neuropathophysiological processes that are underlying it. We cannot answer this question with our study because this was an epidemiological study but I think the very important message is that in people who present with pain in order to give them a holistic treatment we need to at the same time assess for problems with sleep, for anxiety and very importantly because of the role of dopamine in pain processing in people with Parkinson’s we need to work to reduce their motor complications.
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