The New Parkinson's Disease Treatment Book: Partnering with Your Doctor To Get the Most from Your Medications

I bought that book after finding I have tremor and Parkinson’s issues. Lots of good information for anyone doing research on the disease and wanting a better understanding of Parkinson’s and tremors.

My husband who has Parkinson's disease consults this resource frequently and has very indepth information.

This book is full of useful material!

I plow through some chapters, underlining almost every line, and then I get through easily in other chapters. This book is dense with information that's ESSENTIAL if you're caregiving and responsible for the wellness and well-being of someone with Parkinson's - that greedy disease. I found it most informative how the Carbidopa-Levodopa and proteins at dinner work together or against each other; the dietary information was worth the weight of the book. It provides information on the tricky drug interactions so you're aware when/if someone else is giving drugs without awareness of interactions - like in Urgent Care!! Info for all stages of PD/Dementia and other related maladies that might be in the future.It's the allopathic approach, but that's what is needed if your LO is in the hospital, Urgent Care, or living at home with you and using the medical paradigm of today. Perhaps other approaches might augment this material if you want a holistic approach, but using good information from all sides is beneficial and offers options of care. Best to be informed.

This excellent guide, about many aspects, regarding Parkinson’s Disease, was written for everyday people to be able to read and understand! It’s the best Parkinson’s guide book I’ve ever read, and explains many aspects, relating to medical control of Parkinson’s symptoms, and what the many facets can be, and the nature, of one having Parkinson’s, encounters, or can encounter, when dealing with this neurological degenerative disorder!

Best book I've found on Parkinson's. It's detailed and technical, but written in understandable language. In my opinion, as a patient advocate, you need a certain amount of detail to usefully confront this illness, especially since clinicians are often not well-informed regarding aspects of the illness beyond how symptoms can best be relieved. The main flaws in this book stem from it having been written in 2015, since even in the last three years some additional information has come to light. For example, the book does not distinguish between the ubiquinol and ubiquinone forms of CoQ10, even though a recent study has shown ubiquinol to be effective in slowing disease progression. Instead, it cites the older studies of ubiquinone to argue that "CoQ10" is not effective. But still, a very, very helpful and informative book, which I would recommend to anyone confronting this illness.

My neurologist assigned this book. I’m not in a position to judge the accuracy of the information provided, but the author is associated with the Mayo Clinic.This book was written for patients to enable us to understand and to be active participants in our treatment. I can say, on finishing, I have an understanding of the nature of Parkinson’s; I understand the function of each of the drugs that have been prescribed; I’m able to raise key questions about my treatment and to help coordinate treatment by various specialists. I’ve been able, between appointments, to identify and articulate new symptoms and to ask for appropriate treatment.But it should not have required almost 500 pages to achieve these goals. Dr Ahlskog is in serious need of an editor unafraid of wielding a blue pencil. The prose is plodding and dull; transitions are clunky; the book is often redundant — for example, the general rule that, over time, the number of doses per day may change, but the dosage will likely not, is repeated in several chapters; and in the name of comprehensiveness, specialized material is included that will be relevant to only a tiny minority of PD patients, and some — the brand name of drugs that are no longer used in the treatment of PD, for example — that are relevant to no one at all. This book could easily be cut to half its size and would be improved in the process.I was also surprised by the lackadaisical copy editing in a book with an Oxford University Press imprint. Typos and grammatical errors detract from the book’s authority.The weight of most of the argument of the book rests on Dr Ahlskog's personal authority. Even for an eminent neurologist associated with Mayo Clinic, almost 500 pages of “in my practice” and "I do not recommend” and “in my view” is a lot to support. So many statements have the quality of pronouncements ex cathedra: “Although published directives sometimes advise taking a lesser amount of lepodopa when adding doses, that is incorrect.”I say "the argument of the book,” though it ostensibly is not argument, but the presentation of information. But there are clearly schools of thought represented by the variety of PD drugs and treatments Ahlskog surveys, clearly clinicians and researchers who are not part of what I call the carbidopa/lepodopa school of which Ahlskog is a proponent. These other schools of thought are largely dismissed with little fanfare. I’ve been inspired by Ahlskog’s book to read other points of view, and that can’t be a bad thing.

I have had this book for a few years now and I would be lost without it. It's my "go to" reference book on Parkinson's disease. I have highlighted, underlined, annotated and marked pages that I refer to again and again. It is very informative and is well written and easy to understand. If you want to be an active participant in your treatment, this is the book you need. I am very grateful to Dr. Ahlskog for the contribution he has made in the treatment of this difficult disease. I highly recommend this book.