Researchers at University of Queensland’s Centre for Clinical Research are working to improve neuropsychological assessments for earlier and more effective diagnosis of dementia in Parkinson’s disease. In the first stage of the research they are aiming to engage people as many people as possible with Parkinson’s and their family members across Australia to gain their views and experiences of cognitive assessments and diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease dementia.

The project will consist of different forms of participation to choose from such as focus groups over zoom, questionnaires completed online or delphi surveys over zoom.

They are looking for people with Parkinson’s disease or their family care partners, who have undergone a neuropsychological or cognitive assessment, regardless of what the outcome was.

Who can take part?

• Aged over 18 years
• Able to communicate in English sufficiently for the provision of consent and participate in the research activities
• Have a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and have undergone a neuropsychological evaluation related to this condition – or are a family member or carer of someone with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease who has undergone a neuropsychological evaluation.

What is involved?

You have the option to choose from one of the following:

• Online focus group discussion: You will take part in a focus group discussion with approximately 6-8 people who are living with Parkinson’s disease, and carers or family members. You will discuss experiences with cognitive assessment, dementia diagnosis, post-diagnostic support and how all of these experiences could have been improved. If you take part in the online focus group discussion, you will receive a gift voucher to the value of $100 in recognition of your time.

OR

• Online questionnaire: The recommendations from the focus group discussion will be summarised into a questionnaire which will be distributed across Australia.

If you would like to take part in the research or if you would like to discuss the research, please find further details here: https://clinical-research.centre.uq.edu.au/pdcognicare