It has been shown recently that male patients with Parkinson’s disease who have testosterone deficiency may have symptoms resembling non-motor parkinsonian symptoms.¹² Because of the similarity between the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and the symptoms of testosterone deficiency, clinicians may fail to recognise and treat testosterone deficiency in patients with Parkinson’s disease.¹ The identification of testosterone deficiency may have a significant impact on the long term course of the disease, as symptoms mistakenly labelled as non-motor parkinsonian manifestations could be relieved more effectively by testosterone replacement than by other treatments.

In this study we examined the prevalence of testosterone deficiency and testosterone deficiency symptoms among a group of patients with Parkinson’s disease presenting to our movement disorders clinic, to assess how common undiagnosed symptomatic testosterone deficiency was in this population. A mail-back survey was administered to all the patients seen in the clinic after a 12 month period where patients were seen, examined, and entered into a database. The surveys were returned by 91 of 137 male patients with Parkinson’s disease (66%). The diagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson’s disease was confirmed by a movement disorders specialist who applied the …