Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive degenerative disease without curative treatment perspectives. Even when palliative care for people with PD seems to be beneficial, the need for palliative care is often not timely recognized.
Aim: Our aim was to develop a tool that can help healthcare professionals in timely identifying palliative care needs in people with PD.
Design: We used a mixed-methods design, including individual and focus group interviews and a three-round modified Delphi study with healthcare professionals from a multidisciplinary field.
Results: Data from the interviews suggested two distinct moments in the progressive PD trajectory: 1) an ultimate moment to initiate Advance Care Planning (ACP); and 2) the actual start of the palliative phase. During the Delphi process, six indicators for ACP were identified, such as presence of frequent falls and first unplanned hospital admission. The start of the palliative phase involved four indicators: 1) personal goals have started to focus on maximization of comfort; 2) care needs have changed; 3) PD drug treatment has become less effective or an increasingly complex regime of drug treatments is needed; and 4) specific PD-symptoms or complications have appeared, such as significant weight loss, recurrent infections, or progressive dysphagia. Indicators for both moments are included in the RADboud indicators for PAlliative Care Needs in Parkinson's Disease (RADPAC-PD) tool.
Conclusion: The RADPAC-PD may support healthcare professionals in timely initiating palliative care for persons with PD. Identification of one or more indicators can mark the need for ACP or the palliative phase. We expect that applying the RADPAC-PD, for example on an annual basis throughout the PD trajectory, can facilitate identification of the palliative phase in PD patients in daily practice. However, further prospective research is needed on the implementation of the RADPAC-PD.