Maryland Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center

Clinical Research Trials as a Treatment Option

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Clinical research trials are special programs in which new medications or devices are tested and investigated to determine if they are safe and effective. These trials are open to patients with mild, moderate and severe Parkinson's disease.

The Maryland Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center offers a wide range of programs which are exploring new research treatments in Parkinson's disease. The Center is a division of the Department of Neurology and is a full service diagnostic center for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders.

The Center offers comprehensive and expert diagnostic, medical, surgical, and rehabilitative services for patients with Parkinson's disease and parkinskonism.

We are also members of the Parkinson Study Group, a North American Consortium of Research Neurologists who conduct clinical research studies in Parkinson's disease.

At the Maryland Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center we believe patients' involvement in research studies is a good idea, for the following reasons:

Treatment of Parkinson's disease can be improved when people with Parkinson's consent to participate in programs that test drugs.
In clinical research trials, new treatments are tested on patients in carefully planned studies designed or monitored by physicians and statisticians, and people in these trials might have access to helpful drugs years before the drugs are available to others.
People who participate in clinical trials tend to do better than people who do not, even when the people in trials are receiving a placebo rather than a drug. This is because participants in clinical trials receive intense medical attention and monitoring; they are working with people who are especially interested in their disease; they are actively participating in controlling their disease; and they feel better.

This page was last updated on: April 13, 2011.

For more information about the University Physicians Consultation and Referral Service, please call 1-800-492-5538 (patients) or 1-800-373-4111 (physicians).