Plain language summary of mortality rates of patients with Parkinson’s disease psychosis who were treated either with pimavanserin or with different second-generation (atypical) antipsychotics

<b>What is this summary about?</b> More than half of patients with <b>Parkinson’s disease</b> may experience <b>psychosis</b> symptoms (hallucinations or delusions), which can affect their <b>health-related quality of life</b>. <b>What treatments are given for Parkinson’s disease psychosis?</b> Treatments for Parkinson’s disease psychosis include pimavanserin, the only US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medicine for hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease. Other antipsychotics are also often used off-label for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease psychosis (i.e., not FDA-approved for this purpose). The FDA has issued a warning about the increased risk of death in older patients with dementia-related psychosis being treated with antipsychotics, including pimavanserin. <b>What did the researchers study, and what did they find?</b> This study was conducted to compare the risk of death in patients at least 65 years of age starting treatment with either pimavanserin or a different (i.e., off-label) antipsychotic medicine. Overall, this study found that those using pimavanserin had a lower risk of death than those using different antipsychotic medicines. This article summarizes the background, the methods used, and the results of that study. <b>How to say</b> (download PDF and double click sound icon to play sound)… <b>Parkinson’s disease:</b> paar-kuhn-suhnz duh-zeez <b>Psychosis:</b> sai-kow-suhs <b>Pimavanserin:</b> pim-a-van-ser-in <b>Antipsychotic:</b> an-tee-sahy-kot-ik <b>Clozapine:</b> klaw-zuh-peen <b>Quetiapine:</b> kwuh-tie-uh-peen <b>Risperidone:</b> ruh-spear-uh-down <b>Olanzapine:</b> oh-lan-zuh-peen <b>Aripiprazole:</b> eh-ruh-pip-ruh-zl <b>Brexpiprazole:</b> brex-pip-ruh-zl <b>Parkinson’s disease:</b> A slowly worsening disorder of the brain and nerves that can cause uncontrollable shaking, stiffness, slowed movement, or other symptoms, including psychosis. <b>Psychosis:</b> A disorder of the mind that may include seeing or hearing things that others don’t (hallucinations) or believing things that are not real (delusions). <b>Health-related quality of life:</b> A person’s perception of their own physical and mental well-being. This is an abstract of the Plain Language Summary of Publication article. View the full Plain Language Summary PDF of this article to read the full-text Link to original article here