Online Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for People with Parkinson’s Disease and Their Caregivers: a Pilot Study

Abstract

Anxiety and depression are common non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Caregivers of people with PD may experience severe caregiver burden. This study explored the feasibility and potential benefits of an online mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) intervention for improving anxiety and depressive symptoms in people with PD and their caregivers (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04469049, 7/8/2020). People with PD or parkinsonism and anxiety and/or depressive symptoms and caregivers of people with PD participated in one of three online MBCT groups. Demographic variables, pre- and post-MBCT behavioral measures (GAD-7, PHQ-9, Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire — FFMQ-15, Caregiver Self-Assessment Questionnaire — CSAQ), and satisfaction surveys were collected. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data. Pre- and post-MBCT behavioral scores were compared using mixed-effect models. Fifty-six potential participants were assessed for eligibility. Twenty-eight entered MBCT groups; all but one completed the intervention. The overall sample analyzed (22 people with PD, 4 caregivers) showed significant GAD-7 and PHQ-9 score reductions and FFMQ-15 total and observing and non-reactivity subscale score increases (all p ’s < 0.05). Participants with PD and anxiety symptoms ( n = 14) had a significant GAD-7 score reduction; those with PD and depressive symptoms ( n = 12) had a significant PHQ-9 score reduction (both p ’s < 0.05). Participants with PD also had a significant FFMQ-15 observing subscale score increase ( p < 0.05). The caregiver sample was too small to be analyzed separately. Online MBCT is feasible (as measured by high attendance, completion rate, and participant satisfaction) and may be effective in improving anxiety and depressive symptoms in people with PD.

Mindfulness or meditation therapy for Parkinson's disease: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…A number of single-arm trials investigating the effect of mindfulness and meditation therapies in patients with PD have also been conducted [38][39][40][41][42][43]. In general, beneficial effects of a certain degree on mental health, emotion function, cognitive function, and motor function were discovered in patients with PD after mindfulness or meditation therapies.…”

The Feasibility and Efficacy of a Virtual Reality Tandem Cycling Program for Persons with Parkinson’s Disease and Their Care Partners

“…As such, alleviating PD CP depression has the potential to simultaneously improve dyadic well-being and PwPD disease burden. Previous studies have demonstrated that dyadic mindfulness interventions [89][90][91] and multidisciplinary rehabilitation programs [92] improve depression in PwPD and their CP. To our knowledge, this study is the first cycling intervention to improve depressive symptoms experienced by PD CP.…”

“…As such, the lack of improvement in both may explain our findings. Further, the current literature has only described cognitive behavioral therapy [91,96,97] and patient education programs [98] for alleviating PD CP anxiety; exercise interventions have yet to be examined for improving these dimensions of well-being, making our study's preliminary findings a starting point for further analysis.…”

Barriers and facilitators for healthcare providers to implement family-centered care in Parkinson's disease: a scoping review

“…By title and keyword identification, the research topics are summarized in Table 1. There were 31% of the research topics related to telemedicine (n = 5) (20, 24, 26, 28, 34) and cognitivebehavioral therapy (n = 6) (22,24,29,30,35,40). Cognitive behavioral therapy has gradually become a family-centered research focus of Parkinson's since 2010, while telemedicine has gradually become a research hotspot since 2017 because of its technical reasons.…”