Parkinson's Drugs Tradeoff: Better Muscle Control, Worse Side Effects, Review Shows

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2008) — Compared to older drugs for Parkinson disease, a newer class of medications called dopamine agonists might be better at preventing some of the disabling muscle control problems associated with the disease and its treatment, a new review of recent studies concludes

However, patients who take dopamine agonists suffer from an increase in numerous side effects -- from sleepiness to nausea to hallucinations in some cases -- and are more likely to drop out of treatment than those who take the older treatment levodopa or no drugs at all.

"Patients taking dopamine agonists were more than twice as likely to quit treatment, suggesting that the side effects were severe enough to have a meaningful impact on patients' quality of life, outweighing the muscle control problems," said Rebecca Stowe of the University of Birmingham, the review's lead author.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0415194241.htm