HINES, IL — Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) appears to be a risk factor for Parkinson’s disease (PD), according to a new study of veterans.
Researchers from the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital in Hines, IL, examined the relation between PTSD and PD in a cohort of 158,122 veterans who had any VHA or Medicare health care utilization between Oct. 1, 1999, and Feb. 17, 2021. The San Francisco VA Healthcare System and other academic institutions participated in the study.
Using a nested case-control design, the study team matched 10 controls to each veteran with PD by sex, race and rank. The researchers found that, in conditional logistic regression models adjusted for camp and smoking, a PTSD diagnosis was significantly associated with PD (OR = 1.35; p = 0.0002); odds were higher if PTSD was coded before PD (OR = 1.53, p < 0.0001). PTSD may be a risk factor for PD.
Results were published in Movement Disorders.1
“Stress has been proposed as a risk factor for development of Parkinson’s disease (PD) but the data are limited,” the authors wrote. “Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an increasingly well-recognized condition in military veterans, with an estimated prevalence up to 15% in those previously deployed, compared to 7.8% in the general population. PTSD is a disorder that results when a person experiences a traumatic event and develops a set of symptoms that persist for more than one month. Many individuals experience symptoms for more than a year and/or can have symptoms that are intermittent or relapsing.”
Past research has examined the association between PTSD and PD but were limited to using ICD codes to identify PD, according to the authors, who explained, “The objective of this paper was to examine the relationship between PTSD and PD in a cohort of US military veterans with a medical record validated diagnosis of PD. We hypothesized that veterans who experience PTSD are more likely to develop PD.”
- Weaver FM, Cao L, Stroupe KT, Gonzalez B, Brown E, Colletta K, Tanner CM, Goldman SM. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Risk of Parkinson’s Disease in a Veteran Cohort. J Parkinsons Dis. 2024;14(6):1265-1269. doi: 10.3233/JPD-240098. PMID: 39177610; PMCID: PMC11380227.
