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Nursing Knowledge
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic, progressive neurodegenerative disorder. It occurs when the brain cells that make dopamine, a neurotransmitter that coordinates movement, stop working or die. This results in imbalanced dopamine and acetylcholine levels and decreased ability to control movement. PD negatively impacts how a person moves, feels, thinks, sleeps, and speaks. There is no specific test for PD, and there is no cure. Treatment is symptomatic.
The exact cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown, but likely to involve genetic as well as environmental factors.
Risk factors associated with Parkinson’s disease include age, exposure to toxins and pesticides, head trauma, genetics, and a history of depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment, insomnia, and sleep disturbances.
Parkinson’s disease is typically characterized by a combination of motor and non-motor symptoms.
It’s important as a nurse to remember that symptoms can vary widely among individuals and may progress at different rates. The management and care of clients with Parkinson’s disease should be tailored to their unique set of symptoms and challenges.
Parkinson’s disease is not directly life-threatening. It may slightly reduce affected individuals’ life expectancy due to complications like falls or pneumonia. Disease progress is highly individual and the goal of nursing care is to improve clients’ quality of life over the course of the disease and their life as much as possible.
The Hoen-and-Yahr scale is a common way to describe Parkinson’s disease progression and severity:
Note: The progression of Parkinson’s disease is highly individual, and not every affected person will go through every stage.
There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, so treatment aims to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. Management of Parkinson’s needs to be tailored to the individual symptoms the client experiences, disease severity, age, and lifestyle.
To prevent falls in individuals with Parkinson’s, it is recommended to:
Encourage clients and make sure to:
Nursing diagnoses for Parkinson’s disease are individualized based on the client’s specific symptoms, the stage of the disease, and other factors like their overall health status. Here are some potential nursing diagnoses that might be relevant:
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