MOVEMENT DISORDERS AND COVID-19
In this paper recently published in Movement Disorders, Prasad et al., surveyed the perceptions of 100 patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and their caregivers who were under follow-up at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bengaluru, India on the implications of Covid-19 infection. Patients were contacted by telephone for routine follow-up, and questions pertaining to COVID-19 were asked in order to clarify misconceptions, if any. Their results suggest that most patients and caregivers were well informed, and a very small proportion were harbouring misconceptions. However, the authors emphasise that their results may be influenced by the relatively lower severity of the pandemic in India, lockdown, and better family support secondary to the socio-cultural framework. Owing to this, the impact of the pandemic may not be completely reflected. Hence, these responses may vary between countries, severity of the pandemic and duration of the lockdown. The authors concluded that possible misconceptions pertaining to PD and COVID-19 should be addressed by advice targeted toward patients and disseminated through sources which are population and location specific.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32304118
by Marialuisa Zedde and Francesco Cavallieri