(Image: Pixabay CC0)
(Image: Pixabay CC0) EPFL neuroscientists say that early hallucinations disease indicate a greater risk of cognitive decline when there is a diagnosis of Parkinson's. Have you ever felt the strong sensation that someone is behind you, so intense that you turn around, only to see that no-one is there? This is a 'presence hallucination'. Presence hallucinations are particularly frequent but underreported in patients with Parkinson's disease and may appear early on in the course of the disease. They are sometimes ignored by the patient, by clinicians, or brushed off as a simple side-effect of medication. Now, scientists have found that patients recently diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and who have early hallucinations are at greater risk of faster cognitive decline. The results are published in Nature Mental Health. "We now know that early hallucinations are to be taken seriously in Parkinson's disease," says Olaf Blanke, Bertarelli Chair in Cognitive Neuroprosthetics, who leads EPFL's Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience.
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