Social work, Parkinson’s disease care, and COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Parkinson’s Disease is a neurological disease affecting over 10 million people worldwide. Interdisciplinary teams provide integrated care to people with Parkinson’s Disease, including care for non-motor symptoms such as anxiety and depression, and many of these teams include social workers. This study sought to learn more about (a) clinical social work utilization across the continuum of care of PWP and their family care partners and (b) how patterns in utilization and service provision have shifted during the pandemic. This mixed method study identifies the breadth of roles performed by social workers in the comprehensive care of people with Parkinson’s Disease (PWP). Findings underscore the important roles social workers play in providing comprehensive care for PWP and their families and their contributions to interdisciplinary teams providing holistic, integrated care, particularly during COVID-19 and into the future.

KEYWORDS:

• Parkinson’s disease
• social work
• interdisciplinary
• interprofessional teams
• COVID-19
• non-motor
• social work roles
• comprehensive care

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.