Expressive Writing for Individuals With Parkinson's Disease and Their Caregivers (PDEWS)
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About
This randomized, controlled trial (RCT) evaluates the benefits of expressive compared to neutral writing in individuals with Parkinson's Disease and their support persons. Participants will be randomly assigned to complete three, 20 minute sessions of expressive or neutral writing. Participants will complete evaluation of outcomes at baseline, immediate post, 4 month and 10 month follow ups to establish if benefits remain over time. Impact of these therapies on thinking abilities, physical health, and patient and support person ratings of thinking skills, mood and quality of life will be evaluated. Expressive writing is hypothesized to result in greater improvements and/or stability of function on neuropsychological tests of attention, working memory, learning, and memory skills compared to the neutral writing condition.
Results from this study will determine whether brief writing exercises are easily used by and beneficial for individuals with Parkinson's Disease and their support persons. If positive benefit is observed, information from this study will be used to further optimize these therapies for larger trials designed to evaluate the value of the therapies for individuals with Parkinson's Disease and their support persons.
Full description
The expressive writing condition asks participants to write about the most stressful or traumatic experience of their entire lives over three, 20 minute private writing sessions. The neutral control writing conditions asks participants to write about how they spent their time the day before.
Enrollment
Sex
Ages
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Inclusion criteria
Clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease Caregiver of an individual with Parkinson's Disease
Exclusion criteria
Clinical diagnosis of Dementia Clinical diagnosis of other Parkinson's Disease-associated comorbid conditions (e.g., severe anxiety, depression, excessive daytime sleepiness, or psychosis) that significantly influence cognitive testing
Trial design
Primary purpose
Allocation
Interventional model
Masking
40 participants in 2 patient groups
Trial contacts and locations
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Data sourced from clinicaltrials.gov
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