PointClickCare has partnered with the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists on a new tool to help screen patients for Parkinson’s disease psychosis.
Parkinson’s psychosis, an ailment that manifests through behaviors including hallucinations and delusions, is common in Parkinson’s patients but is often misdiagnosed. Patients may instead be prescribed antipsychotic medications that don’t treat the underlying issues. In other cases, signs of Parkinson’s psychosis may only be exhibited at night, with providers remaining unaware.
The PointClickCare tool asks patients a handful of research-based questions covering topics such as hallucinations and delusions. Once the screening is complete, staff can have a conversation with the provider centered on responses. It is designed to enable conversations and provides care planning suggestions for a clinical team.
In addition to enabling earlier diagnosis, the screener will feed better data about the condition to the senior care industry to help shape better care. It will be used as part of PointClickCare’s Lighthouse initiative to further Parkinson’s psychosis treatment research.
“Not only will the screener tool better enable faster diagnosis, it will provide the senior care industry with a consistent way of approaching Parkinson’s Psychosis,” said Bill Stuart, clinical product strategist for PointClickCare. “We understand the industry needs a standard approach to care by delivering standardized content that ultimately leads to standard data. Standard data is the only way to look across facilities to identify trends that can potentially provide new workflows and/or lead to new treatments.”
The screener is currently available to all customers who opt in as part of PointClickCare’s free clinical content offering.
