The alteration of sympathetic skin responses recorded from frontal region depending on the most affected side in Idiopathic Parkinson?s Disease

IPD is a neurodegenerative disease. Autonomic nervous system dysfunction accompany the disease from the beginning. In this thesis, it was aimed to investigate, the rate and the role of sympathetic dysfunction, if there is, and to determine the contribution to the diagnosis, and also the interaction with the treatment. Sympathetic skin responses were recorded from bilateral palm and frontal skin region in 23 patients with idiopathic Parkinson?s disease and in 22 healthy gender- and age-matched volunteers by electrical stimulation of right tibial nerve at the ankle. The amplitudes of the palmar-SSRs didn?t show any significant difference between the first and the second tests, between the right and the left sides and also between the most affected and non-affected sides in Test 1, Test 2 and in control group. However, when we excluded the patients with early stage Parkinson?s disease, there occured a significant amplitude decrease in the after-treatment group compared with the control group. When we analyzed the correlation between the amplitudes of palmar-SSRs recorded in Test 1 and H&Y scores and UPDRS scores, it was observed that SSR amplitudes decrease as the disease progress. In frontal SSR recording, it was observed that the left side responses were not obtainable independent of the most affected or non-affected side and also in the control group. Palmar and frontal-SSRs were not significantly different when we compared the patients with hyperhydrosis and the patients without this complaint and also with the control group. However, the patients with hyperhydrosis were having dominantly left sided motor symptoms and this finding was statistically different.