Spontaneous Parkinsonism Is Associated With Cognitive Impairment in Antipsychotic-Naive Patients With First-Episode Psychosis: A 6-Month Follow-up Study

There is now growing evidence that parkinsonism and other extrapyramidal signs are highly prevalent in patients with first-episode psychosis who have never been exposed to antipsychotic drugs. However, the neuro-cognitive correlates of parkinsonism in this population remained to be clarified. A sample comprising 100 con-secutive drug-naive patients with first-episode psychosis were enrolled on the study and followed up for 6 months. Seventy-seven completed assessments at 3 time points (baseline, 1 mo, and 6 mo), involving clinical and cog-nitive examinations and a specific assessment of motor abnormalities. The Simpson-Angus Scale (SAS) was used for the assessment of extrapyramidal signs, and each motor domain was evaluated with a standard assess-ment scale. Linear mixed models were built to explor