Friday, 2 August 2019

Palliative care for persons with Parkinson’s disease: a qualitative study on the experiences of health care professionals

BMC Palliative Care 2019 18:53
Herma Lennaerts, Maxime Steppe, Marten Munneke, et al

The aim of this study was to examine health care professionals’ experiences of potential barriers and facilitators in providing palliative care for people with Parkinson's Disease in the Netherlands.  In daily practice, they struggled to identify persons’ needs due to PD-specific symptoms such as cognitive decline and communication deficits. Timely advance care planning to explore the personal preferences for palliative care was identified as an important facilitator. Findings indicate a perceived lack of care continuity, fragmentation of services, time pressure and information discontinuity and a need to improve the knowledge of complex PD.

Fulltext availalbe in BMC Palliative Care