Pallative Care For End Stage parkinson's Disease

Here’s a topic that is not discussed often enough in the Parkinson's disease community: palliative care for end stage parkinson disease. At present there is no cure for parkinson disease—and we all know that the disease is progressive-it gets worse over time. Luckily that time may be measured in decades now given the major advances in medical care for parkinson disease. Nevertheless at some point care for the person with very late stage or end stage parkinson disease becomes impossible for one or two or a whole family of caregivers. Repeated hospital admissions are too expensive to say the least.
Nursing homes are not particularly good at palliative care. What is needed is a palliative program designed specifically for parkinson disease patients. No such programs currently exist-though families and patients say they want them. Here is a need, a pressing and great need that is not being addressed by the market or by government or social service agencies-not even by the palliative care community. Only people within the parkinson disease community, patients, their families and their advocates can make it happen. So what are we waiting for?