Inpatient Parkinson’s Disease Medicine Adjustment
In an effort to find the best timing and medicines to treat your Parkinson’s disease symptoms, your doctor believes it would be helpful to do a one-week medicine adjustment in the hospital.
This one-week in-hospital medicine adjustment will begin on a Monday morning. It will most likely end on Friday evening. The exact times will be decided by your doctor. Plan on arriving at the hospital by 7am on the day your medicine adjustment is going to begin. You should take your medicine as normal that morning. Bring all of your medicine with you.
Starting on the day you arrive a Physical Therapist (PT) will be visiting you every hour from 8am to 4pm. The PT will walk with you and assess your symptoms. The PT will test your movement. Specifically, the PT tests for tremor, stiffness, how steady you walk, your balance, and any impaired voluntary movement (dyskinesia).
Every evening, your doctor will read the PT’s notes from the day. The doctor will adjust your medicine based on this assessment. Your medicine times, doses, and frequency may change throughout the week. There could be times when you find your symptoms are worse. This is part of the process. The goal is to find the best medicine plan to control your symptoms by the end of the week.
You may wonder why you have to be in the hospital for this adjustment. Your doctor believes that this is the safest and most useful way of changing your medicines. In the hospital, you can be checked hourly during the day by a PT. Because your symptoms could become worse at times this is a safe place for you. The nurses and nursing assistants working with you during this week are careful about your safety and your increased risk of falling. They may ask that you not get up without help to decrease your risk of falling. Your doctor, the PTs, and nursing staff are all working together to adjust your medicines so they work the best they can by the end of the week.
Make plans to keep yourself busy.
- Bring books, crossword puzzles, knitting, DVDs and player, etc..
- Keep a journal of your symptoms in the evening when PT is not there. Report to them in the morning.
- Bring whatever clothing you find comfortable and would like to wear. Remember you will be in the hospital for 5 days.
- You will be walking every hour, bring shoes that you walk best in.
The information provided should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.
Last Updated: 04/07/2009
Copyright © 04/07/2009 University of Wisconsin Hospitals and Clinics Authority. All rights reserved. Produced by the Department of Nursing. UWH #6847
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