The impact of levodopa on quality of life in patients with Parkinson disease

Kapil Dev Sethi

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

31 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: Parkinson disease (PD) is associated with a progressive decline in patient quality of life (QoL), because of motor and nonmotor manifestations of PD and treatment-related side effects. Review Summary: Treatment with carbidopa/levodopa-the current gold standard therapy-improves QoL in the short term, but gains are not maintained over a long term. Long-term treatment is associated with symptom re-emergence (end-of-dose "wearing off") and development of dyskinesia, which may have an adverse impact on QoL. Conclusions: Levodopa (LD; combined with carbidopa) remains the gold standard for symptomatic treatment of PD, but long-term treatment is associated with complications that may adversely affect QoL. Recent studies have suggested that the addition of a catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitor may improve QoL through the reduction of some of the motor complications of LD therapy. Further studies are required to determine the full effects of this as well as other treatments that are used to manage LD-associated complications on QoL.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)76-83
Number of pages8
JournalNeurologist
Volume16
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2010

Keywords

  • Levodopa
  • Parkinson disease
  • Quality of life

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Clinical Neurology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The impact of levodopa on quality of life in patients with Parkinson disease'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this