Rehabilitation and multidisciplinary team care for Parkinson’s disease
What is it about?
Parkinson’s disease is a complex neurological disorder that affects over 10 million people worldwide. Rehabilitation plays a crucial role in improving symptoms, function, and quality of life and reducing disability for people with Parkinson’s. An international task force of experts came together to develop recommendations for delivering rehabilitative and multidisciplinary care in Parkinson’s. This paper examines the role of rehabilitation from a broad international perspective of clinicians, researchers, and people living with Parkinson’s.
Why is it important?
Rehabilitative interventions play an important role in the comprehensive care of a person with Parkinson’s across all stages of disease. These interventions include not only physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology, but also others geared towards mental health, nutrition, arts, and more. Rehabilitative care, however, remains under-recognized and under-utilized in Parkinson’s, and often only considered at later disease stages, despite research demonstrating its benefits on function and quality of life. Developing a unified understanding of how multidisciplinary rehabilitative care can help people living with Parkinson’s represents a key step in improving patient outcomes.