Combining dopamine agonists of different dopamine receptor profiles in advanced Parkinson's disease

Advanced Parkinson's Disease is marked by increasing response fluctuations and dyskinesia.with dose-related as well as random „off“periods and sometimes violent involuntary movements in „on“periods. We treated 413 patients in this stage of the disease in 2003. For 38 of these patients conventional strategies such as adding COMT-inhibitors, dopamine agonists, modulating daily levodopa intake by combining soluable, standard and slow release preparations or adding amantadine, were not successful. Methods: All of these 38 patients were evaluated for deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus. In 11 of the 38…