Specialized Staff for the Care of People with Parkinson's Disease in Germany: An Overview.

Access to specialized care is essential for people with Parkinson´s disease (PD). Given the growing number of people with PD and the lack of general practitioners and neurologists, particularly in rural areas in Germany, specialized PD staff (PDS), such as PD nurse specialists and Parkinson Assistants (PASS), will play an increasingly important role in the care of people with PD over the coming years. PDS have several tasks, such as having a role as an educator or adviser for other health professionals or an advocate for people with PD to represent and justify their needs.

Recommendations for Standards of Network Care for Patients with Parkinson's Disease in Germany.

Although our understanding of Parkinson´s disease (PD) has improved and effective treatments are available, caring for people with PD remains a challenge. The large heterogeneity in terms of motor symptoms, nonmotor symptoms, and disease progression makes tailored individual therapy and individual timing of treatment necessary. On the other hand, only limited resources are available for a growing number of patients, and the high quality of treatment cannot be guaranteed across the board.

Do We Need to Rethink the Epidemiology and Healthcare Utilization of Parkinson's Disease in Germany?

Epidemiological aspects of Parkinson's disease (PD), co-occurring diseases and medical healthcare utilization of PD patients are still largely elusive. Based on claims data of 3.7 million statutory insurance members in Germany in 2015 the prevalence and incidence of PD was determined.

[Epidemiology of Parkinson's Disease and Current Concepts of Outpatient Care in Germany].

The ambulatory care of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) in Germany has been established for a long time. As the prevalence of Parkinson's disease continues to increase, the outpatient neurological sector is becoming more and more important and needs to adapt itself to current needs. This includes an optimization of the care structures for Parkinson's patients as well as adequate concepts for the execution of differentiated diagnostics and therapy.

Classification of advanced stages of Parkinson's disease: translation into stratified treatments.

Advanced stages of Parkinson's disease (advPD) still impose a challenge in terms of classification and related stage-adapted treatment recommendations. Previous concepts that define advPD by certain milestones of motor disability apparently fall short in addressing the increasingly recognized complexity of motor and non-motor symptoms and do not allow to account for the clinical heterogeneity that require more personalized approaches. Therefore, deep phenotyping approaches are required to characterize the broad-scaled, continuous and multidimensional spectrum of disease-related motor and non-motor symptoms and their progression under real-life conditions.

Advanced stages of PD: interventional therapies and related patient-centered care.

During the last decades, symptomatic treatment of motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease (PD) improved continuously and is reflected by long-range independency of the patient during the disease course. However, advanced stages of PD still represent an important challenge to patients, caregivers and treating physicians. In patients with advanced PD, interventional therapy strategies are increasingly applied.

Intrathecal application of autologous bone marrow cell preparations in Parkinsonian syndromes.

Background: A growing number of patients is treated with intrathecal application of autologous bone marrow cells (aBMCs), but clinical data are completely lacking in movement disorders. We provide first clinical data on efficacy and safety of this highly experimental treatment approach in parkinsonian syndromes.

Methods: Retrospective data collection from patients with parkinsonism who spontaneously sought cell treatment.

Tolcapone improves sleep in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease (PD).

Efficacy of the long-acting catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT)-inhibitor, tolcapone on sleep quality was studied in 61 patients with advanced PD in a prospective open-label multicenter non-interventional trial. Main outcome measures were the PD sleep scale (PDSS). Further outcome measures were global clinical impression of change (GCI-C), daily off-time, activities of daily living (UPDRS part II), quality of life (EuroQoL-5D), Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) and adverse events reports.