Parkinson's disease (PD), as a chronic degenerative disorder of the central nervous system mainly affects the motor system and has traditionally been viewed as a motor disorder. However, more recent scholarship has recognized that is a multisystem disease. Cognitive decline ranging from mild cognitive impairment to dementia are frequent symptoms in patients with Parkinson´s disease (PD) that are highly debilitating both for patients and their relatives and also cause an enormous socioeconomic burden. Cognitive change may already occur in the prodromal phase of PD. Yet, underlying mechanisms of cognitive decline in PD are still incompletely understood, neuropsychological diagnosis is so far not routinely implemented in clinical practice and relies on rather classical approaches, pharmacotherapy for dementia is available (with limited effects), while prevention strategies are lacking, and ideas for Parkinson specific care also addressing cognitive dysfunction are rare.
Therefore, in this special issue we want to outline the present state and the possible future developments of our knowledge of cognitive symptoms in PD regarding the topics raised above. More specifically, we encourage to submit work on the following topics;
• Underlying cellular or neurobiological mechanisms of cognitive decline from its earliest stage.
• New developments in clinical diagnostics of cognitive dysfunction from its earliest stages including digital technologies, AI approaches etc..
• New approaches to prevent or delay cognitive dysfunctions including pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions as well as combined approaches.
• Care concepts for patients with PD that consider management of cognitive dysfunction
Reviews and original work (with quantitative or qualitative methods) both on the prodromal phase of PD and clinical PD are welcome. We explicitly welcome work that recognizes health inequalities, considering, e.g., patients with different socioeconomic background, race, or gender.
Keywords: Parkinson's, cognitive deficit, cognitive symptoms
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
