Assessing Prevalence and Efficacy of Medication Management Aids in Patients with Parkinson's Disease (P02.086)

OBJECTIVE: To determine how commonly Parkinson9s disease (PD) patients use medication management aids and evaluate whether these are associated with improved adherence. BACKGROUND: Medication aids such as pill boxes and alarms can help improve medication adherence in geriatric populations. This has not been well-studied in PD. DESIGN/METHODS: Patients with PD (disease duration ≥1 year) with responsibility for managing their medications completed a medication adherence aid questionnaire and the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8). Demographic data and medications were obtained from the medical record and clinical database. RESULTS: Sixty-eight participants (mean age 68.3 years) had an average disease duration of 9.6 (SD 5.4) years and were on a total of 6.3 (SD 3.6) total different medications (range 1-17). 82% of patients reported use of one or more aids to manage their medications: 72% reported using pill boxes, 16% alarm reminders, and 13% phones with alarms; 47% received help from care partners. 5% used more than one aid. Patients who used aids of any kind were more likely to be highly adherent (MMAS-8 score 0-3, 84% vs. 75%) but this did not reach statistical significance (p=0.46). Analysis of adherence by type of aid showed similar findings across the aid types, with the exception of phones with alarms (n=9). Phone alarm use was associated with less high adherence (55% vs. 86%; p=0.03). Phone alarm users were younger (mean 61.9 vs. 69.3 years, p=0.01) and more likely to be white (100% vs. 90%, p=0.01) than non-users, with no other significant group differences. CONCLUSIONS: PD patients commonly use medication management aids and these are generally associated with high medication adherence, except for phone alarms. Future research is needed to confirm this finding and examine why use of phone alarms might be associated with lower adherence. Disclosure: Dr. Holmes has nothing to disclose. Dr. Akinwale has nothing to disclose. Dr. Armstrong has nothing to disclose. Dr. Gruber-Baldini has nothing to disclose. Dr. Anderson has received personal compensation for activities with Boehringer Ingelheim R11 as a consultant and expert medical exaluation. Dr. Anderson has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity as Section editor for Current Treatment Options in Neurology. Dr. Reich has received royalty payments from Informa Publishers. Dr. Reich has received research support from NINDS, Chiltern, Synosia, and Phytopharm. Dr. Fishman has received personal compensation for activities with Pfizer Inc, Forest Laboratories, Inc., Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals, Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Novartis, and Allergan, Inc., as a speaker. Dr. Fishman has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity for Neura. Dr. Weiner has received personal compensation for activities with Santhera and Rexahn. Dr. Weiner has received personal compensation in an editorial capacity for Neurological Reviews and Current Treatment Options in Neurology. Dr. Weiner has received research support from Teva Neuroscience, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Merck Serono. Dr. Shulman has received personal compensation for serving as Editor of the AAN Neurology Now patient book series. Dr. Shulman has received research support from the NIH, Fox Foundation and Teva Pharmaceuticals.