Neuropsychiatric symptoms are frequent in
Parkinson’s disease. Using the Neuropsychiatric
Inventory (NPI), we compared the neuropsychiatric
profile of 515 non-demented patients treated with
different dopaminergic agonists or levodopa (L-dopa)
in monotherapy matched for L-dopa daily equivalent
dose, and we found differences only in apathy score.
Patients on pramipexole showed significantly lower
total apathy scores. Moreover, clinically meaningful
symptoms of apathy were significantly lower in the
pramipexole group (11.2 %) than in the ropinirole
(20.3 %) and L-dopa (23.8 %) groups (p = 0.002)