A recent study from the University of Eastern Finland shows that up to one in three people with Parkinson’s disease uses at least one psychotropic medication. Patients with Parkinson’s disease used psychotropic medications more frequently than controls before diagnosis, and their use increased as the disease progressed.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disease characterized by motor symptoms such as resting tremor, slowness of movement, and rigidity. Even before motor symptoms appear, the disease may be accompanied by neuropsychiatric symptoms, sleep disturbances, and pain, which are often treated with psychotropic medications. However, to date, no longitudinal studies have been conducted on the use of psychotropic drugs in patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The study looked at psychotropic medication use over a 10-year period, starting 5 years before and ending 5 years after Parkinson’s disease diagnosis. The study used various health care registries across Finland and included 17,370 community-dwelling patients with Parkinson’s disease and 115,386 matched controls without Parkinson’s disease.
During follow-up, the proportion of people using a single psychotropic medication increased from 18% to 35% in Parkinson’s disease patients and from 14% to 20% in controls. Similarly, the use of drugs from at least two different psychotropic drug groups was more common among Parkinson’s disease patients than among controls. At the beginning of follow-up, 5% of patients with Parkinson’s disease were using more than one psychotropic medication, which increased to 10% at the end of follow-up. In both cohorts, psychotropic drug use was highest among the oldest age group, those aged 80 years and older.
Benzodiazepines and related drugs (BZDRs) were the most frequently used psychotropic medications in the control cohort throughout the follow-up period and were also the most frequently used among Parkinson’s disease patients up to 3 years after diagnosis, after which antidepressants became even more commonly used than BZDRs.
Researchers say the high frequency of psychotropic drug use among people with Parkinson’s disease likely reflects the fact that non-motor symptoms appear before diagnosis and worsen as the disease progresses. It may also be related to more frequent use of medical services. A cause for concern is that the use of psychotropic drugs, particularly psychotropic polypharmacy, increases the risk of falls and related fractures in older adults, while patients with Parkinson’s disease are already at increased risk of these events.
sauce:
University of Eastern Finland (UEF Communications)
Reference magazines:
Nieminen, N. others. (2026). Psychotropic medication use among community residents with and without Parkinson’s disease – a national cohort study. British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. DOI: 10.1002/bcp.70553. https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bcp.70553
