Challenges of medication management in hospitalized patients with Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Managing the inpatient medications of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) poses many challenges to the pharmacist and other members of the health care team. Patients with PD, generally elderly, have different combinations of symptoms, are hospitalized at different stages of their disease, and often have complex medication regimens that entail frequent administration and vary throughout the day. Also, the effectiveness and need for PD medications are influenced by the patient’s underlying medical conditions, in particular the necessary cessation of medications for surgical or other invasive treatments. For all of these reasons, PD patients require additional time and special consideration, taxing inpatient health care providers who may have limited experience with this primarily outpatient condition. Thus, there is opportunity for optimizing these patients’ inpatient care through interdisciplinary comanagement by a team of physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. In this article, we discuss the challenges of inpatient medication management for people with PD and the potential for improvement of system-based and patient-centered care.