Yordanka Ricardo-De la Fe

Patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease present sleep disorders with a higher frequency than the general population. The sleep architecture in these patients shows variations with respect to the normal population, so in this work it was decided to investigate the characteristics of the macroarchitecture of sleep in patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A polysomnographic study was carried out on 77 patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. All the studies were processed according to the AASM Manual for the Scoring of Sleep and Associated Events v.2.2, and to the criteria of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders 3rd ed. (2014). Processing was carried out using descriptive statistics, as well as non-parametric analysis for comparison between cases and controls. The group of patients showed significant reductions of the N2, N3, and REM sleep stages when compared with a control group, as well as a significant increase in intra-sleep wakefulness. The number of REM–NoREM sleep cycles and sleep efficiency showed marked reduction compared to the control group. There was a statistically significant difference in the macroarchitecture of sleep between patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and healthy controls.

Introduction: Treatment strategies in Parkinson’s disease (PD) can improve a patient’s quality of life but cannot stop the progression of PD. We are looking for different alternatives that modify the natural course of the disease and recent research has demonstrated the neuroprotective properties of erythropoietin. In Cuba, the Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM) is a cutting edge scientific center where the recombinant form (EPOrh) and recombinant human erythropoietin with low sialic acid (NeuroEPO) are produced. We performed two clinical trials to evaluate the safety and tolerability of these two drugs in PD patients. In this paper we want to show the positive results of the additional cognitive tests employed, as part of the comprehensive assessment. Materials and method: Two studies were conducted in PD patients from the outpatient clinic of CIREN, including n = 10 and n = 26 patients between 60 and 66 years of age, in stages 1 to 2 of the Hoehn and Yahr Scale. The first study employed recombinant human (rhEPO) and the second an intranasal formulation of neuroEPO. All patients were evaluated with a battery of neuropsychological scales composed to evaluate global cognitive functioning, executive function, and memory. Results: The general results in both studies showed a positive response to the cognitive functions in PD patients, who were undergoing pharmacological treatment with respect to the evaluation (p < 0.05) before the intervention. Conclusions: Erythropoietin has a discrete positive effect on the cognitive functions of patients with Parkinson’s disease, which could be interpreted as an effect of the neuroprotective properties of this molecules. To confirm the results another clinical trial phase III with neuroEPO is in progress, also designed to discard any influence of a placebo effect on cognition.