Objective: To determine patients’ perceptions and knowledge of herbal medicine, including medical cannabis (MC) and Mucuna pruriens (MP), for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD)

Background: The use of herbal medicine products has increased tremendously and widely mentioned among patients with PD. In recent years, there has been increased interest in the medical use of MC and MP for certain aspects of PD such as motor fluctuations and non-motor symptoms. However, there is still limited therapeutic evidence into their benefits. Data on the perception, knowledge and use of herbal medicine may support integrative medicine for PD patients.

Method: A cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study was conducted in 50 Thai PD patients. The objective of the questionnaire was to identify patients’ perceptions and knowledge of herbal medicine (MC and MP) among Thai PD patients. The true or false, 10-item knowledge questionnaires were constructed separately for identification of basic knowledge about MC and MP. The questionnaire was administered by personal (face-to-face) interviewing at an outpatient clinic or by online patient self-assessment using Google form. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and compared between subgroups of patients.

Results: Demographic are shown in [table1]. Among the fifty respondents, over 80% of patients preferred a combination of traditional and alternative therapies. From the perspective of herbal medicine, patients were more interested in MC than MP with correlated to the mean score of knowledge about MC that was greater than MP (8.00 vs 5.68). Main sources of knowledge were medical professionals and non-relatives (54%) follow by television (52%) and internet (42%) [figure1]. Eleven patients (22%) were on self-prescribed MC or MP [figure2]. In subgroup analysis, use of MC or MP was significantly higher in advanced stage disease or patients with dyskinesia compared to early stage or patients without dyskinesia (p=0.007 and p=0.025, respectively). [figure3, 4]

Conclusion: Despite the limited amount of therapeutic evidence concerning MC and MP, most PD patients preferred to use a combination therapy. Since knowledge about herbal medicine was mainly obtained from public media and non-healthcare providers, knowledge dissemination should be useful to PD patients, especially patients in the advanced stage with motor complication.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/patients-perceptions-of-herbal-medicine-for-parkinsons-disease-thai-perspectives-on-cannabis-and-mucuna-pruriens/