Patients in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease(PD) may have subtle cognitive deficits, while overt cognitive deficits are usually manifestations of late-stage PD. There is still a debate on the outcome of deep brain stimulation (DBS) on cognitive function of PD patients. This study aimed to investigate the effect of subthalamic nucleus(STN)-DBS on dementia of PD patients after surgery as compared to medical therapy and other procedures.
We searched PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane library and Web of Science database in 22th October 2020. The words Deep Brain stimulation, Parkinson’s disease, dementia, and memory have been searched. Reviews, abstracts, case presentations and letters were excluded.
Totally, 490 studies were screened after removing the duplicates. The screening results yielded 81 articles to be screened for eligibility. Finally, 6 studies were included in this meta-analysis for synthesis. Overall, 800 patients were included in this meta-analysis, using Mattis dementia rating scale (MDRS) along with descriptive data of the articles was extracted for assessment of global dementia.
Our results indicated that STN-DBS group showed a larger cognitive decline than the best medical treatment(BMT). DBS diminished the score of Mattis dementia rating scale in PD patients more than BMT. The effect of STN-DBS vs. other procedures on dementia was not significant; our results showed that STN stimulation made no significant change in global dementia of PD patients in midterm compared to GPi, Pallidal stimulation and pallidotomy.

Keywords: Subthalamic nucleus, Parkinson’s disease, deep brain stimulation, Parkinson’s disease dementia

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