Research Article Relationship between Cognitive Performance and Motor Dysfunction in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease: A Pilot Cross-Sectional Study Valentina Varalta, 1 Alessandro Picelli, 1 Cristina Fonte, 1 Stefania Amato, 1 Camilla Melotti, 1 Vanja Zatezalo, 1 Leopold Saltuari, 2,3 and Nicola Smania 1,4 1 Neuromotor and Cognitive Rehabilitation Research Center, Department of Neurological and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, 37134 Verona, Italy 2 Department of Neurology, Hochzirl Hospital, 6170 Zirl, Austria 3 Research Unit for Neurorehabilitation South Tyrol, 39100 Bolzano, Italy 4 Neurorehabilitation Unit, Hospital Trust of Verona, 37126 Verona, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Nicola Smania; nicola.smania@univr.it Received 10 October 2014; Revised 19 January 2015; Accepted 18 March 2015 Academic Editor: Matteo Paci Copyright © 2015 Valentina Varalta et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. he aim of this pilot cross-sectional study was to extensively investigate the relationships between cognitive performance and motor dysfunction involving balance and gait ability in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Twenty subjects with Parkinson’s disease underwent a cognitive (outcomes: Frontal Assessment Battery-Italian version, Montreal overall Cognitive Assessment, Trail Making Test, Semantic Verbal Fluency Test, and Memory with Interference Test) and motor (outcomes: Berg Balance Scale, 10-Meter Walking Test, 6-Minute Walking Test, Timed Up and Go Test performed also under dual task condition, and Uniied Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale) assessment. Our correlation analyses showed that balance skills are signiicantly correlated with executive functions, cognitive impairment, and ability to switch attention between two tasks. Furthermore, functional mobility showed a signiicant correlation with cognitive impairment, verbal luency, and ability to switch attention between two tasks. In addition, the functional mobility evaluated under the dual task condition showed a signiicant correlation with cognitive impairment and ability to switch attention between two tasks. hese indings might help early identiication of cognitive deicits or motor dysfunctions in patients with Parkinson’s disease who may beneit from rehabilitative strategies. Future prospective larger-scale studies are needed to strengthen our results. 1. Introduction Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an idiopathic neurodegenera- tive disorder caused by a progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta [1]. Clinical manifestations include reduced amplitude of movement, hypokinesia, rigidity, resting tremor, and postural instability [1, 2]. he resulting abnormal gait patterns raise the risk of falls, with up to 63% of people with PD reporting more than one fall per year [3]. In addition to motor symptoms, about 25% of newly diagnosed PD suferers present with cognitive deicits [4] frequently involving attention, memory, visuospatial, and executive functions in nondemented people with PD [4–7]. Oten, PD-associated cognitive deicits are underestimated in daily clinical practice probably because cognitive assessment is mainly based on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) that has low sensitivity for detect- ing alterations in speciic cognitive and executive functions [8–11]. Internal generation of movement and executive functions both require decision-making processes in order to select an action among several alternative possibilities for the task at hand. he basal ganglia (mostly modulated by dopaminergic projections) seem to have an important role in the mediation Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2015, Article ID 365959, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/365959