A patient who is newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease is prescribed levodopa [Dopar]. The patient asks the nurse about drugs to prevent disease progression. What will the nurse tell this patient?

Question

a. "Levodopa may prevent disease progres-sion in higher doses and is safe to use for this purpose."
b. "MAO-B inhibitors and dopamine agon-ists have both shown neuroprotective ef-fects in human studies."
c. "Vitamin E has been shown to delay neu-ron degeneration and may be used as ad-junctive therapy."
d. "While some drugs show promise, there are no studies that have proven a neuro-protective effect."

Answer 1

D
To date, there is no definitive proof that any drug can protect dopaminergic neurons from pro-gressive degeneration. Levodopa has shown neuroprotective effects, but studies have demon-strated toxic effects in the doses required for this purpose. MAO-B inhibitors have shown bene-fits, but only in animal studies. Vitamin E was once theorized to offer this protection, but recent studies have provided good evidence that this is not the case.