Parkinson's website launched
Interactive tool helps patients and clinicians
A website has been launched aimed at Parkinson’s patients, their carers, and healthcare professionals.
The interactive site, funded by Orion Pharma, provides support and tools on how to recognise wearing-off symptoms, as well as information to help patients. It also contains an online symptom diary to track a patient’s progress.
A spokesman for Orion Pharma said: “Every hour someone in the UK is told they have Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological condition with no cure. The main symptoms are tremor, rigidity and slowness of movement, which usually begin very gradually, develop slowly and can occur in any order.
“Levodopa therapies are prescribed eventually to most people with Parkinson’s. However, long-term use of this medicine may give rise to certain complications where symptom control fades out and the effect of the drug wears off.
“The symptoms that tend to return during wearing-off may include tremor, stiffness, slowness, muscle cramping, reduced dexterity and agility, mood changes, slowness of thinking, anxiety or even pain at the end-of-dose period.”
Speaking about how the website will help, he added: “www.wearingoff.co.uk contains detailed symptom questionnaires which can be regularly filled in and printed off for patients to prompt discussion with their doctor – allowing treatment to be quickly adjusted to improve symptoms.”
Click here to visit the website