University of Alberta research indicates that depression is common with early Parkinson’s disease (PD), but is often untreated or diagnosed. They found that 27% of PD patients screened positive for depression, while 40% of those patients were not treated for depression.

The researchers suspect that one of the reasons that symptoms of depression go undiagnosed is that indicators, like fatigue and insomnia, are attributed to Parkinson’s disease but depression is not. Left untreated depression may increase the difficulty a patient has coping with Parkinson’s disease and reduce their motor skills ability.