Characteristics of Patients with Late-Stage Parkinsonism who are Nursing Home Residents Compared with those Living at Home

OBJECTIVES: To determine clinical characteristics and treatment complications of patients with late-stage Parkinsonism living in nursing homes compared with those living at home. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: This study is an analysis of 692 patients with late stage Parkinsonism recruited to an in-depth international study, Care of Late-Stage Parkinsonism (CLaSP). MEASURES: Sociodemographic characteristics were compared between patients who were living in a nursing home (n = 194) and those living at home (n = 498). Clinical assessments included the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), the nonmotor symptom scale, the neuropsychiatric inventory, and a structured interview of patients and carers. Predictors of nursing home status were determined in a multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Nursing home placement was strongly associated with more severe cognitive impairment, worse UPDRS motor scores and disability, and with being unmarried and older. Although nursing home residents had significantly higher axial scores, falls were less common. Despite similar levodopa equivalence doses, they had less dyskinesia. Nonmotor symptom burden, particularly delusion, hallucination, and depression scores were higher in nursing home residents, and they were more frequently on psychotropic medication. They had lower rates of dopamine agonist use and lower rates of impulse control disorders. In multivariate analysis, being unmarried, presence of cognitive impairment, worse disease severity as assessed on the UPDRS parts II and III, severity of delusions, and lower rate of dyskinesia were associated with nursing home placement. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: These clinical characteristics suggest that in patients with Parkinsonsim who are nursing home residents, presence of cognitive impairment and delusions particularly add to the higher overall symptom burden, and more often require specific treatments, including clozapine. Despite similar levodopa equivalent daily dose, motor severity is higher, and dyskinesias, indicative of a response to levodopa, are less common. Falls, however, also occur less commonly, and dopamine agonists are less frequently used, with lower rates of impulse control disorder

Factors associated with health‐related quality of life in late‐stage Parkinson's disease

© 2021 The Authors. Movement Disorders Clinical Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Movement Disorder Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: There is limited knowledge on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in late-stage Parkinson's disease (PD). Objective: To assess factors associated with HRQoL in patients with late-stage PD, with a focus on health care provision. Methods: The Care of Late Stage Parkinsonism (CLaSP) project is the largest study on late-stage PD to date. The current study analyzed data of 401 patients from 6 European countries in whom HRQoL was assessed with the 8-item PD Questionnaire in patients without dementia. Factors potentially associated with HRQoL were assessed and examined in linear regression analyses. Results: Better HRQoL was associated with living at home, greater independence in activities of daily living (Schwab and England Scale), less severe disease (Hoehn and Yahr stage), better motor function (Unified PD Rating Scale Part III), and lower non-motor symptoms burden (Non-Motor Symptoms Scale [NMSS]) across all NMSS domains. Having a PDspecialist as physician for PD, contact with a PDnurse, and no hospital admission during the past 3 months were associated with better HRQoL, but having seen a physiotherapist or occupational therapist was associated with worse HRQoL. Conclusions: The results emphasize the importance of optimizing treatment for motor and multiple non-motor symptoms to improve HRQoL in patients with late-stage PD. PD-specific health care resources, particularly PDnurses, are likely important in addressing issues to improve HRQoL in this population. Worse HRQoL in those who had recently seen a physiotherapist or occupational therapist may reflect referral based on factors not measured in this study.The study was funded through the Joint Programme–Neurodegenerative Disease Research; through national funding bodies in all 6 countries—United Kingdom: Economic and Social Research Council ES/L009250/1; Sweden: the Swedish Research Council and CLaSP/JPND HC-559-002; Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), Marburg, 01ED1403A, Munich, 01ED1403B; France: ANR-13-JPHC-0001-07; Portugal: HC/0002/2012; Holland: 733051003. In addition, the study was funded by MultiPark, the strategic research area for neuroscience at Lund University; the Swedish Parkinson Foundation; the Swedish Parkinson Academy, and the Faculty of Medicine at Lund University.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Optimizing Treatment in Undertreated Late-Stage Parkinsonism : A Pragmatic Randomized Trial

Background: Treatment of patients with late-stage parkinsonism is often sub-optimal. Objective: To test the effectiveness of recommendations by a movement disorder specialist with expertise in late-stage parkinsonism. Methods: Ninety-one patients with late-stage parkinsonism considered undertreated were included in apragmatic a pragmatic multi-center randomized-controlled trial with six-month follow-up. The intervention group received a letter with treatment recommendations to their primary clinician based on an extensive clinical assessment. Controls received care as usual. The primary outcome was the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS)part-II (Activities of Daily Living). Other outcomes included quality-of-life (PDQ-8), mental health (UPDRS-I), motor function (UPDRS-III), treatment complications (UPDRS-IV), cognition (Mini-mental-state-examination), non-motor symptoms (Non-Motor-Symptoms-scale), health status (EQ-5D-5L) and levodopa-equivalent-daily-dose (LEDD). We also assessed adherence to recommendations. In addition to intention-to-treat analyses, a per-protocol analysis was conducted. Results: Sample size calculation required 288 patients, but only 91 patients could be included. Treating physicians followed recommendations fully in 16 (28%) and partially in 21 (36%) patients. The intention-to-treat analysis showed no difference in primary outcome (between-group difference=-1.2, p=0.45), but there was greater improvement for PDQ-8 in the intervention group (between-group difference=-3.7, p=0.02). The per-protocol analysis confirmed these findings, and showed less deterioration in UPDRS-part I, greater improvement on UPDRS-total score and greater increase in LEDD in the intervention group. Conclusions: The findings suggest that therapeutic gains may be reached even in this vulnerable group of patients with late-stage parkinsonism, but also emphasize that specialist recommendations need to be accompanied by better strategies to implement these to further improve outcomes