The Living with Parkinson's Tip of the Day: The hospital is a dangerous place for persons with Parkinson's

Many years ago we started receiving posts on our “ask the doctor forum” at the Parkinson’s Foundation suggesting that people were checking out of the hospital worse off then when admitted (with Parkinson’s).

Our centers of excellence network have since published about a dozen papers confirming this observation and suggesting areas of improvement.

We developed an aware in care kit for PD hospitalization and have given it out free to over 100,000 families. This kit has everything you need to survive a hospitalization. It has cool contents like lists you can share with your healthcare team to be sure the medications are given “on time every time.” Also, it has lists of “no-no” medications which may make you worse.

The hospital is a dangerous place for the Parkinson’s disease patient. Every effort should be pursued to avoid hospitalization and to take care of problems in the outpatient clinic (if possible).

If hospitalized, become your own advocate. You can order an “aware in care” hospitalization kit from the Parkinson’s Foundation. You can also call 1800-4-PD-INFO and our helpline will hook you up with one.