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Palliative Care in Parkinson’s Disease

  • Movement Disorders (SA Factor, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Palliative care for Parkinson disease (PD) is a new concept in neurodegenerative care. Abundant evidence exists supporting PD as increasing risk of death, most commonly from aspiration pneumonia despite improvements in motor and non-motor symptom management. Palliative care emphasizes an interdisciplinary and holistic approach to symptom management. In the following, the timing for considering palliative care, the communication surrounding this stage of illness, and assessing patients and caregivers will be discussed. Evaluation using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale-PD can help practitioners identify symptoms requiring intervention and track their response to interventions. Adopting palliative care principles will allow neurologists to fulfill the needs of PD patients in advanced stages to the end of life.

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Conflict of Interest

Janis M. Miyasaki declares that she has no potential conflicts of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Movement Disorders Centre, The Edmond J Safra Program in Parkinson’s Disease, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Janis M. Miyasaki

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  1. Janis M. Miyasaki
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Correspondence to Janis M. Miyasaki.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Movement Disorders

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Miyasaki, J.M. Palliative Care in Parkinson’s Disease. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 13, 367 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-013-0367-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-013-0367-y

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