Bridging the Gap: Association between Objective and Subjective Outcomes of Communication Performance in People with Parkinson's Disease Evaluated for Deep Brain Stimulation

Background: Decrements in verbal fluency following deep brain stimulation (DBS) in people with Parkinson's disease (PwP) are common. As such, verbal fluency tasks are used in assessing DBS candidacy and target selection. However, the correspondence between testing performance and the patient's perception of communication abilities is not well-established.Methods: The Communication Participation Item Bank (CPIB) was administered to 85 PwP during pre-DBS neuropsychological evaluations. Central tendencies for CPIB responses and correlations between CPIB total scores, clinical and demographic factors, and language-based tasks were examined.Results: Most PwP indicated some degree of communication interference on the CPIB. Worse scores on semantic fluency and greater motor impairment were associated with more communication interference.Conclusions: Our findings suggest an incomplete correspondence between commonly used language-based tests and patient-reported outcomes of communication abilities. The need for a functional communication instrument that reflects the different aspects of communication abilities in functional contexts is emphasized.