Background: There has been increasing interest in recent decades in the interactions between disease, religious faith, and spirituality. An issue specific to neurological disorders is to what extent religiousness and spirituality depend upon the integrity of neuronal pathways. Methods: We review recent research that investigates the effects of Parkinson's disease (PD) on religious faith and spirituality. Few studies have addressed this issue, but these few illustrate contrasting methodological approaches that yield different conclusions. Findings: On the one hand, case-control studies have reported an apparent decrease in both religious practice and beliefs in PD with some influence of laterality of disease onset. In contrast, qualitative studies investigating religious and general coping in PD emphasize that religious faith remains important to patients. Conclusions: Methodological pitfalls are found in both approaches. We conclude that there is little evidence to support claims of reduced spirituality and religious faith in PD. We recommend approaches to future studies that could enable a more nuanced understanding of spiritual and religious changes that might occur in PD.
A limited literature suggests that people with Parkinson's disease have reduced religious beliefs, practices and experiences, compared to normal healthy controls. But we reasoned these results may be confounded by reduced mobility and social isolation associated with Parkinson's disease. So, we recruited a cohort of 42 Parkinson's patients and 39 controls with chronic respiratory disease, non-neurological autoimmune disease or rheumatological problems. Each subject was examined twice, 12 months apart and assessed on validated scales of handicap and impairment, with spirituality measured by the modified Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (BMMRS), an abbreviated Hood Mysticism Scale, and the Cloninger Transcendance Inventory.As expected, the Parkinson's group showed a greater decline in mobility and cognitive function over 12 months, compared to controls yet their religiosity scores were undiminished. Quantitative analysis showed significantly increased positive spiritual experiences in the Parkinson's group (p=0.04) relative to controls. “Religious support”, a proxy for involvement in a religious community, was maintained despite decreasing mobility. Qualitative accounts indicated that faith and spirituality were maintained in those patients with PD for whom it was important at baseline. We identified no aspect of faith that was reduced by degeneration of basal ganglia pathways.
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