Subthalamic Stimulation Improves Quality of Life of Patients Aged 61 Years or Older With Short Duration of Parkinson's Disease

Objective: The optimal timing of subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD) is a topic of ongoing debate. In patients with short disease duration an improvement of quality of life (QoL) has been demonstrated for patients aged younger than 61 years. However, this has not been systematically investigated in older patients yet. We hypothesized that patients aged 61 years or older experience a significant QoL improvement after STN-DBS with no difference in effect sizes for groups of patients with short and longer disease duration. Materials and Methods: From four centers (Cologne, London, Manchester, Venice) we identified older patients aged 61 years or older with short (8 years) disease duration. Our results contribute to the debate about DBS selection criteria and timing and call for prospective confirmation in a larger cohort