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Background and Aims: Impaired emotional facial expressiveness is an important feature in Parkinson's disease (PD). Although there is evidence of a possible relationship between reduced facial expressiveness and altered emotion recognition or imagery in PD, it is unknown whether other aspects of the emotional processing, such as subjective emotional experience (alexithymia), might influence hypomimia in this condition. In this study wee aimed to investigate possible relationship between reduced facial expressiveness and altered emotion processing (including facial recognition and alexithymia) in patients with PD., Methods: Forty PD patients and seventeen healthy controls were evaluated. Facial expressiveness was rated on video recordings, according to the UPDRS-III item 19 and using an ad hoc scale assessing static and dynamic facial expression and posed emotions. Six blind raters evaluated the patients' videos. Emotion facial recognition was tested using the Ekman Test; alexithymia was assessed using Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20)., Results: PD patients had a significantly reduced static and dynamic facial expressiveness and a deficit in posing happiness and surprise. They performed significantly worse than healthy controls in recognizing surprise (p=0.03). The Ekman total score positively correlated with the global expressiveness (R^2=0.39, p=0.01) and with the expressiveness of disgust (R^2=0.32, p=0.01). The occurrence of alexithymia was not different between PD patients and HC; however, a significant negative correlation between the expressiveness of disgust was found for a subscore of TAS (R^2=-.447, p=0.007)., Conclusions: Reduced facial expressiveness in PD may be in part related to difficulties with emotional recognition in a context of an unimpaired subjective emotional experience., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship quality and satisfaction in couples, in which one partner had PD, obtaining the perspective of both patients and partner and to examine the impact of alexithymia, empathy, depression, and anxiety on ratings of relationship quality and satisfaction. Fifteen PD patients and partners completed the following scales: the Dyadic Adjustment Scale; Couple Satisfaction Index (CSI); the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale; the Empathy Quotient; the Hamilton Depression and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A). We evaluated patients' motor functions by means of Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale and patients' quality of life by means of the PD Questionnaire. Patients were significantly less satisfied with the relationship than their partners as revealed by CSI (p = 0.031) and they were more depressed (p = 0.003) and anxious (p = 0.015). A negative correlation between measures of relationship quality and satisfaction and alexithymia was found in the patients group. No correlations were found between measures of relationship quality and satisfaction (both of patients and partners) and any other demographical and clinical variables. CSI and HAM-A were predictors of patient's social support evaluation. The presence of alexithymia in PD is an important factor affecting relationship quality and satisfaction.