Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Email- You are here:
- Home
- >
- Guidelines in Practice
- >
- Volume 13 - Edition 1
News
News - January 2010
Guideline on the management of Parkinson’s disease is published
The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) has released Diagnosis and pharmacological management of Parkinson’s disease.
This neurodegenerative disorder affects between 160 and 200 patients per 100,000 people in Scotland. With no single authoritative diagnostic test, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is open to a degree of subjectivity and error. The recommendations in the guideline are based on current evidence for best practice and aim to make things clearer and more concise for the general practitioner or other healthcare professional involved in the diagnosis and management of Parkinson’s disease.
Diagnosis
The guideline includes recommendations on:
- clinical diagnosis compared with pathological confirmation
- referral of untreated patients with suspected Parkinson’s disease to a hospital clinician with sufficient expertise in movement disorders for a definitive diagnosis
- the use of structural and functional imaging
- screening for depression in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Pharmacological management
Recommendations cover:
- drug efficacy in early disease
- adverse effects associated with dopamine agonists
- management of motor complications
- treatment of mental health disorders.
The SIGN guideline includes a narrative review of publications describing patient issues. The review identified issues of concern for patients with Parkinson’s disease, including:
- communication
- attitudes to drug therapy.
A checklist for provision of information is also included in the guideline, and has been designed to help healthcare professionals support and reassure patients and carers as well as keep them informed throughout the patient journey.
The guideline does not cover the role of allied health professionals or the benefits of neurosurgical management such as brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease.
The DH asks health and care professionals to engage with Local Involvement Networks
The Department of Health is calling for health and care professionals to support Local Involvement Networks (LINks), as it emphasises the importance of public involvement in the provision of high-quality care.
In line with the objectives of the NHS Constitution, LINks are one way the public can get involved and help to make the NHS a continuing success. They can feedback directly to NHS and social care commissioners and providers, allowing local services to be much more responsive to the needs of the local community. Local Involvement Networks are composed of individuals and community groups working together to improve local services.
Local health and care services are already benefiting from involvement with LINks through reducing waiting times, improving accessibility to services, and establishing a role in the consultation process.
As part of the campaign to improve awareness of LINks, a website has been launched on NHS Choices: www.nhs.uk/links, to alert both the public, commissioners, and service providers to the different ways they can get involved and the advantages of doing so.
The Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease has updated its guideline on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
The guidance discusses the first evidence of medication decreasing the rate of decline of lung function.
The Primary Care Respiratory Society UK, formerly the GPIAG, has launched ‘First steps’
This web-based resource aims to encourage individuals and organisations to assess their readiness to implement the imminent COPD National Strategy.
A guideline to help professionals assess mental capacity has been published
The book, produced by the BMA and the Law Society, sets out best practice for dealing with a person who may lack the mental capacity to make a specific decision.
Nil by mouth should be the last option for patients near the end of life
This is the central message of a report on the challenges of oral feeding towards the end of life, published by the RCP and the British Society of Gastroenterology.
Please login to rate this article, view others comments or make your own.
Guidelines in Practice, January
2010, Volume 13 (1)
© 2010 MGP
Ltd
further information | subscribe