Communication of Health professionals with Patient with Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease is chronic, slowly developing neurodegenerative disease. The basic cause for the origin of disease is the lack of dopamine. It is a typical disease for older age with the beginning of the disease from 45 65 years. Approximately 10% of cases begin before the age of 40. Owing to the frequent loss of facial expression and numbness in face, patients have often difficulties with verbal but also non-verbal communication. It is very important for health professionals to realize that patients with this disease can appear in any hospital ward. Therefore it is necessary to master not only nursing care but also communication with the patient. The theoretical part of this bachelor's thesis dealt with Parkinson's disease and its symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. The next chapter dealt with communication and its basic division, and with barriers which can impede the communication with patients. Aims: The research has two aims. The first aim was to find out the contemporary state of communication between health professionals and the Parkinson's disease patients. For this aim, this research question was created: How does the communication between health professionals and Parkinson's disease patients take place? The second aim was to find out which communication problems the Parkinson's disease patients have when communicating with health professionals. The research question for this aim was: Which communication problems do occur during communication of a health professional with a Parkinson's disease patient