Domain-specific severity profiles in a large Turkish Parkinson's disease cohort using MDS-UPDRS cut-offs

Background: Standardized severity thresholds for the MDS-UPDRS facilitate interpretation of symptom burden Parkinson's disease (PD). However, domain-specific severity profiling using these cut-offs has not been systematically evaluated in T & uuml;rkiye, and international studies rarely apply them across all MDS-UPDRS domains in world cohorts. Objective: To describe domain-specific severity distributions of MDS-UPDRS Parts I-IV in a large multicenter Turkish PD cohort and examine clinical correlates. Methods: In this multicenter cross-sectional study, 1181 patients with PD from five Turkish movement disorder centers were evaluated between January 2023 and July 2025. Severity of each MDS-UPDRS domain was sified as mild, moderate, or severe using validated cut-offs proposed by Martinez-Martin et al. Results: Using the predefined Martinez-Martin cut-offs, 53.0% of patients were classified as mild in Part I 57.8% in Part II, whereas 50.1% fell within the moderate-severe range in Part III and 73.5% were mild in Part In contrast, MDS-UPDRS Part III showed a shift toward moderate severity, suggesting a relative difference severity distribution across domains. Disease duration showed the strongest association with domain scores. Conclusion: In this large Turkish PD cohort, patient-reported daily-living and non-motor impairments clustered more frequently within the mild severity range compared with motor examination scores. These findings suggest that sociocultural factors may influence self-reported disease burden and highlight the need for complementary assessment approaches.

Dergi

PARKINSONISM & RELATED DISORDERS

Yıl

2026

Cilt

146

ISSN

1353-8020

eISSN

1873-5126

DOI

10.1016/j.parkreldis.2026.108281

WoS UID

WOS:001722143800001