Sexuality and disability, a poorly studied relationship in neurology

NASIMBERA, ALEJANDRO H; RODRIGUEZ, G.E

Boston, Massachussets

Congreso; AAN Anual Meeting; 2017

American Academy of Neurology

Background:Chronic neurological diseases generate disabilities in multiple aspects of life, including sexuality. Despite this,their documentation is scarce.Design/Methods:We evaluated patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Parkinson disease (PD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)and Stroke of at least one year of evolution, and healthy controls. Disability was assessed with ALSFRS-R (ALS),EDSS (MS), MDS-UPDRS (PD) and RANKIN (Stroke) scales. Sexual function was measured with theInternational Index Erectile Function (men) and the Female Sexual Function Index (women).Beck Depression Inventory was performed to all patients. Patients consented to participate in the study. ForStatistical significance chi2 and Student t test were used.Results:A total of 71 patients were included: 42 cases and 29 controls. The only statistically significant differencesbetween the two groups were depression 47% vs 14%, and the absence of sexual activity in the last 6 months55% vs 28%, respectively.Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that disability was a statistically significant predictor for sexualdysfunction (p< 0.05) OR = 20.38 (IC 95%: 2.5-165.86).When analyzing each disease, 100% of PD?s patients had sexual dysfunction, and ALS patients were the mostseverely compromised. Regarding gender, sexual function in sick women was more affected than in men. Asregards orgasmic function, sick women show higher rates of orgasmic dysfunction than sick men.Conclusions: Sexual dysfunction was more frequent in patients with chronic neurological diseases. We found astatistically significant relationship between sexual dysfunction and disability. For overall sexual function, theresults indicate that women had lower rates of sexual performance for the same degree of disability than men