Redressing the Balance in Parkinson’s Disease Management with a Greater Focus on Non-motor Symptoms and Care-giver Health
Redressing the Balance in Parkinson’s Disease Management with a Greater Focus on Non-motor Symptoms and Care-giver Health
European Neurological Review, 2009;4(1):31-4
Abstract
A more widespread use of questionnaires and scales such as non-motor symptoms (NMS)-Quest and the non-motor symptoms scale (NMSS) has confirmed that NMS, such as sleeping difficulties and speech problems, are at least as troublesome for Parkinson’s disease patients as the major motor symptoms. These NMS can have a profound negative effect on patient quality of life and on the health of the person providing care. This fact is now receiving more attention in clinical practice and measures are being taken to improve the recognition and treatment of NMS, and to provide better support for care-givers. As our knowledge base of NMS expands, we are increasingly finding that some of them, e.g. olfactory deficit and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder, also occur early in Parkinson’s disease, possibly pre-dating a diagnosis based on motor signs alone.
Keywords Parkinson’s disease, disease management, non-motor symptoms (NMS), quality of life, care-giver health, questionnaires/scales, NMSQuest, NMSS
Disclosure: Susanna Lindvall and Michael Wainwright have no conflicts of interest to declare. Johan Lökk is an Advisory Board member for oehringer-Ingelheim and Lundbeck.
Received: 13 April 2009 Accepted: 2 July 2009
Correspondence: Susanna Lindvall, Swedish Parkinson's Disease Association, Skeppargatan 52, 11458 Stockholm, Sweden. E: susanna.lindvall@swipnet.se
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is most commonly recognised as a movement disorder disease. Accordingly, motor symptoms (MS) have been the focus when making diagnoses, prescribing treatment and assessing its effect. Considerable progress has been made in all three areas and effective therapies are now available to improve the quality of life (QoL) of PD patents with early- and late-stage disease. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly recognised in clinical practice that non-MS (NMS), such as sleeping difficulties, depression and hallucinations, can be at least as troublesome for patients as the major MS. Furthermore, NMS often have a profound effect on care-giver QoL, an aspect of PD management that has also tended to be overlooked.
This article, intended for a readership with a broad interest in PD, reviews these ‘neglected’ sides of the disease and highlights the value of instruments (questionnaires/scales) for gathering information about NMS and their consequences for patients and carers.
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Parkinson’s disease, disease management, non-motor symptoms (NMS), quality of life, care-giver health, questionnaires/scales, NMSQuest, NMSS, Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, Parkinson’s disease treatment, Parkinson’s disease tremors, non-motor symptoms levodopa, non-motor symptoms dopamine agonists, non-motor symptoms deep brain stimulation,
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