Parkinson Patient

Over six million people worldwide including one million in the U.S. live with Parkinson's disease-a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder characterized by symptoms that typically progress from mild tremors a significant physical disability.

Despite modest advances in pharmaceutical and surgical therapies, there is no known cure for Parkinson's disease. The best hope of finding, say experts in the field through clinical trials. Therein lies the problem.

While nearly all (over 96 per cent) of doctors in the United States who treat people with Parkinson's disease agree that clinical trials are needed to find better treatments for the disease, the majority of Doctors have never referred a patient to a clinical trial.

These are among the highlights of a recent survey commissioned by the advancement of therapies for Parkinson's (APT), a collaborative effort led by the major organizations of Parkinson's. The survey also revealed that Parkinson's patients, 40 percent cited support groups and 27 percent cite other people with the disease than the most common sources of information on clinical trials . Meanwhile, only 11 percent of patients to obtain information from their doctors.

Currently, less than 1 percent of people with Parkinson's disease involved in clinical research. This is far from the level that researchers anticipate will be needed for clinical studies over the next two or three years, including studies of treatments to slow or stop disease progression and improve symptoms such as tremors. This disparity can lead to serious delays in the availability of new treatments.

Barriers to information

The lack of adequate information on clinical trials has been identified as a barrier to participation in clinical trials. Only 14 percent of primary care physicians, 21 percent of neurologists and 18 percent of patients surveyed said they somewhat or very satisfied with the amount of information available on clinical trials of Parkinson's disease.

"People do not get the information they need to make informed decisions about whether to participate in a trial," said Michael J. Fox. "The fewer people go into the test, he will have more develop new treatments. "

To meet this challenge, the community of Parkinson launched a new campaign, the progress of Parkinson's Therapies (APT), to patients and physicians are better informed. The campaign aims to fill information gaps and provide physicians and patients with information on a variety of clinical trials are currently enrolling patients.