Treatment-Related Complications

PD patients can be adversly affected by both symptoms of the disease and side effects of therapies that target symptoms.  Some of the most onerous adverse conditions seen in PD patients, such as dyskinesia, are known to be side effects of drug therapies that aim at reducing the effects of the dopamine depletion that occurs in PD. Other treatment-related complications of dopamine replacement therapies include on-off fluctuations and loss of drug efficacy with chronic treatment ('wearing off').   Psychiatric side effects are also associated with PD drug therapies.