Established link between social isolation and Parkinson's disease

Under the direction of Mark Pell, McGill University scientists published a study that establishes a connection between the social isolation of people and Parkinson's disease and their difficulty in expressing themselves. In the study, researchers divided a group of aged between two teams: one consisting of healthy patients and second, for patients with Parkinson's. Groups were asked to describe visual scenes aloud, while their voices were recorded. Volunteers who were not aware of the health status of participants, listening to the recordings, highlighted the description of the group 2 as less involved, unmotivated, unhappy and less friendly than others.

With these results, the study established a correlation between the communication problems due to Parkinson's disease and social isolation resulting from the limited number of interactions between people with the disease and their environments. This research has opened another route, which health professionals can address to provide psychological and emotional support to people with Parkinson's. The results were published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

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