Future medications

In recent years, great progress has been made in developing new treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD). This means that people can now be offered more effective control of their symptoms than ever before.

Clinical research is investigating therapies with the potential to stop the progression of PD (see section on ‘Slowing disease progression’) or even cure it completely. These are two main aims of PD research that may hold promise for the coming years. However, new treatments that could produce better symptom control and fewer side effects would also help to improve quality of life.

Medical research for PD is focussing on the following areas:

• understanding what causes PD
• diagnosing PD early
• protecting the brain against PD
• preventing progression of PD
• restoring dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain
• improving treatment of symptoms
• limiting the side effects associated with PD medications
• investigating more convenient and effective ways to deliver medications to the body
• studying new surgical methods to treat or cure PD