Palliation for People with Parkinson Disease: Why, When, and How?

The progressive nature of Parkinson disease (PD) warrants a comprehensive therapeutic approach that considers the gradually changing challenges facing patients and their families. Standard care, which is symptomatic and largely clinical, cannot address these many challenges adequately. One promising complementary approach is palliative care, which is a holistic way of looking at a person and family in the context of a serious illness (https://www.who.int/cancer/palliative/definition/en). To assess the utility of an outpatient palliative care program comprising regular visits by a multidisciplinary team, investigators randomized 210 patients with parkinsonism (88% with PD) and 175 caregivers to receive either the palliative care program or s…