Publications by authors named "Sandra Dillon"
Background: The best way to initiate dopaminergic therapy for early Parkinson disease remains unclear.
Objective: To compare initial treatment with pramipexole vs levodopa in early Parkinson disease, followed by levodopa supplementation, with respect to the development of dopaminergic motor complications, other adverse events, and functional and quality-of-life outcomes.
Design: Multicenter, parallel-group, double-blind, randomized controlled trial.
Background: Embryonic nigral cell implants are a novel treatment for Parkinson disease (PD). Reaction time (RT) and movement time (MT) analysis, validated quantitative measures of premovement neural processing and motor execution, can be used as objective physiological markers of motor performance in PD.
Objectives: To gauge the change in motor performance in patients with PD who received implants, and to determine whether the physiological findings correlate with clinical outcome measures after transplantation.
Context: This study was part of a large double-blind sham surgery-controlled trial designed to determine the effectiveness of transplantation of human embryonic dopamine neurons into the brains of persons with advanced Parkinson's disease. This portion of the study investigated the quality of life (QOL) of participants during the 1 year of double-blind follow-up.
Objectives: To determine whether QOL improved more in the transplant group than in the sham surgery group and to investigate outcomes at 1 year based on perceived treatment (the type of surgery patients thought they received).