Continued usage of Parkinson's worsening drugs in patients diagnosed with Parkinson's disease – What can be done to solve this problem.
Sindhura Tadisetty1, Saikumar Reddy Pasya2, Tritia Yamasaki1, Zain Guduru1
1University of Kentucky, 2Osmania medical college and Hospital
Objective:
1.Find incidence of continued usage of drugs worsening Parkinson's symptoms in patients with established Parkinson's disease.
2.Proposing solutions to limit drugs that can worsen symptoms in patients with Parkinsons.
Background:
Certain anti-psychotics, antiemetics and dopamine depleting agents are known to worsen Parkinson's symptoms. Due to several reasons such as patients' unwillingness to change medication, lack of alternative drugs to manage psychiatric symptoms or reluctance of physicians etc., there is continued usage of these drugs in Parkison's patients.
Design/Methods:
We used Epic slicer dicer to obtain details of all patients diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease seen by two movement disorder specialists at the Kentucky neuroscience institute, University of Kentucky between 10/8/2021 and 10/8/2022. 343 patients were found fulfilling that criterion. We collected details of all outpatient medications prescribed.
Results:
We found 1 patient being treated with Perphenazine, 7 with Promethazine, 2 with Haloperidol, 7 with Olanzapine, 5 with Tetrabenazine, 2 with Ziprasidone, 2 with Aripiprazole, 7 with Olanzapine, 3 with Prochlorperazine, 7 with Promethazine, 24 with Hydroxyzine, 1 with Metoclopramide, 31 with Mirtazapine, 10 with Paroxetine, 2 with Lithium, 4 with Risperidone.
Conclusions:
There is a great usage of anti-dopaminergic drugs that worsen Parkinson symptoms there are various reason clinician ten to use these drugs even with their adverse effects. We want to ask physicians to look out for this medication and try to avoid them. In these cases, it is especially important for a multidisciplinary approach, using alternative medications, when possible, with help from pharmacy colleagues. It is important to educate parkinsonian patients about these drugs and their adverse effects.