Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a challenging, progressive neurodegenerative process projected to affect greater than one million patients in the United States over the next decade. Pharmacological interventions are the hallmark of treatment and are used for symptom management; there is no cure for this lifelong disease. Once-daily preparations are typically inadequate as a sole treatment or contraindicated related to comorbid or drug-induced psychiatric symptoms or behaviors. In addition, multiple medications and a variety of dosing times have an increasingly negative effect on medication adherence. The literature contains many resources to measure and understand what medication non-adherence is, who is at risk, and some novel ways to improve the outcomes. Being a chronic disease, PD follows similar consequences caused by inconsistent medication self-management. The scales imported from hypertension and kidney transplant patient education make it essential to know that no one scale will do it all. Comparatively, intervention strategies were also imported and seen throughout the literature, including time-tested patient education, newer ideas using technology like electronic pill dispensers, smartphone timers or reminders, simplified doses, telephone call follow-up, and support groups. The care of PD patients has come a long way. However, we must implement more effective interventions until the evidence shows higher medication adherence. This project aimed to illustrate how to recover PD patients’ quality of life through symptom management using evidenced-based interventions to improve medication non-adherence.

Date of publication

4-2023

Document Type

DNP Scholarly Project

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/4180

Committee members

Dr. Cheryl D. Parker, Ph.D., RN-BC, CNE

Degree

Doctor of Nursing Practice

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