Zeitschrift für Alzheimer-Krankheit und Parkinsonismus

Abstrakt

Prolonged Loss of Consciousness in Parkinson’s Disease

Mitsunori Morimatsu

Background: Loss of consciousness is fairly common in Parkinson’s disease, which occurs as syncope associated with postural hypotension based on autonomic dysfunction, or as sleep disorder which consists of excessive daytime sleepiness and sleep attacks.

Case presentation: Ten patients with Parkinson’s disease are reported who showed episodes of loss of consciousness lasting for 4-24 h that appeared to be deep sleep or a coma, and could not be roused even by strong painful stimuli. After four hours or more, they spontaneously resumed consciousness without sequelae.

Discussion and conclusion: The diagnostic criteria of these two disorders in ICSD-3 differ from the prolonged loss of consciousness in my cases. As it has brought great concern to family members, medical staff, and emergent hospital personnel, we must pay more attention to this type of loss of consciousness.