Parkinson’s Medication Causes Problem Gambling

The International Movement Disorder Society Conference was held in Ireland last week, led many medical practitioners to believe that the medication used to treat Parkinson’s disease could possibly exacerbate problem gambling and other Impulse Control Disorders (ICDs). Research indicates that the side effects Parkinson’s patients experience could be used to study problem gambling.

Parkinson’s Medication Linked to Problem Gambling

Prof David Burn of Newcastle University said that recent research in North America indicated that 13.5% of Parkinson’s patients have some type of ICD with 5% being addicted to gambling. Compulsive shopping 5.7% is the only other compulsion that is more present in Parkinson’s patients in contrast to 3.5% that suffer from hyper sexuality and 4.3% who eat compulsively.

Presently there are only a few ways to treat medication-related ICDs. Before a medical practitioner prescribes any form of medication it’s best to inform the patient of the side effects first. Before medication is prescribed patients must be screened to ascertain if they can develop the risk of developing an ICD.

In order to uncover the psychological effects of ICD’s extensive research still needs to be done first. Hopefully this research could be seen as a point of departure from which problem gamblers can benefit.