Article on the outcome of Parkinson’s patients affected by COVID-19

A group of four Parkinson’s clinicians have published their findings of the outcomes of Parkinson’s disease in those affected by COVID-19, examining a cohort of 10 patients.

The article, 'Outcome of Parkinson’s Disease patients affected by COVID-19' by Prof Angelo Antonini, Dr Valentina Leta, Dr James Teo and Prof K Ray Chaudhuri, is the first during this coronavirus pandemic to assess the outcomes for those living with Parkinson’s who contract COVID-19.

The general commentary has been that Parkinson’s itself does not increase the risk of severity of COVID-19 for people, although associated factors like being older, and having associated respiratory problems make the disease more severe in those who do develop it.

However, this new report says that:

‘These findings suggest that PD patients of older age (mean 78.3 years) with longer disease duration (mean 12.7 years) are particularly susceptible to COVID-19 with a substantially high mortality rate (40%).

Those on advanced therapies, such as deep brain stimulation or levodopa infusion therapy, seem specially [sic] vulnerable and a mortality rate of 50% among our four such cases is of [sic] concern.’

The report goes on to conclude that:

‘Many national and charity guidelines do not list PD or specifically older subjects on advanced therapies as a susceptible group and this information needs to be amended in light of this new data.’

Parkinson’s Academy have updated their information accordingly.

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