The absence of orthostatic heart rate increase is associated with cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease

Orthostatic hypotension (OH) frequently accompanies autonomic dysfunction and is an important risk factor for cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD). While OH is usually diagnosed based on an orthostatic blood pressure drop, the association between the heart rate response and cognitive impairment remains unclear. We retrospectively analyzed 143 cases of clinically diagnosed PD to determine the association between the absence of a heart rate response and cognitive impairment in PD with OH. Among the patients with OH, neurogenic OH was diagnosed in cases without a heart rate increase, while all other patients were diagnosed with non-neurogenic OH. Dementia was found in 23 of 143 PD cases (16.1%) in this cohort. The presence of OH was an independent risk factor for dementia in PD in addition to the disease severity, years of education and beta-blockers use. Neurogenic OH was significantly associated with dementia compared to the no OH group (hazard ratio [HR] 7.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.2–24.6, P<0.01), an association that was preserved after adjusting for age, gender and other covariant factors. However, no such association was observed for non-neurogenic OH (HR 2.9, 95%CI 0.8–10.9, P = 0.12). While the cognitive impairment was significantly worse in the neurogenic OH group than the no-OH group, the groups were otherwise similar. The blood pressure decrease was significantly lower in both OH groups than in the no-OH group, despite no significant differences between the OH groups. Our finding showed that OH without a heart rate response was an important predictor of cognitive impairment in PD.