Health-related quality of life in people with Parkinson.

Conclusions Compared with those attending standard neurological out-patient clinics, individuals referred to an inter-professional PD program are more likely to have advanced disease and poorer HRQOL. This observation has implications for the way in which people with PD are recruited for future clinical trials, because uneven recruitment from different sources may be a potential source of bias.What is known about the topic? Given that PD is associated with a complex array of motor and non-motor symptoms, an inter-professional team approach to service provision is argued to be optimal for individuals living with this debilitating condition.What does this paper add? This paper has shown that individuals referred to an inter-professional service are more likely to have advanced disease and complex care needs. Compared with those referred to neurologist private clinics, those referred to an inter-professional clinic had less functional independence and lower PD-specific HRQOL when first assessed, even after controlling for disease severity.What are the implications for practitioners? When recruiting for future trials to examine the efficacy of multidisciplinary care programs in people with PD, it is important to take into account whether these individuals have been referred to an inter-professional service. There may be a potential source of bias if participants were recruited predominantly from such services. PMID: 26910356 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Australian Health Review - Category: Hospital Management Authors: Tags: Aust Health Rev Source Type: research