Understanding pain and physic suffering of caregivers and patients with Parkinson´s Disease

Background: Parkinson’s disease may affect individual’s quality of life, once it interferes in their functional capacity. Caregivers can also have their quality of life compromised due to the difficulty of dealing with complex manifestations of the disease, so it might be possible they assume the position of a hidden patient, suffering from the overload of the function, wich contribute for their illness. Method: Search in PubMed and Scielo databases, with a total of nine selected articles. Results and Discussion: Emotional, social, physical factors and personal characteristics might interfere in caregivers’ quality of life. In addition, patients and family members may also have impaired quality of life. Thus, it is important for these professionals, subjects affected by Parkinson’s disease and family members to participate in support groups is necessary in order to share feelings experienced in daily life. Conclusion: Therefore, it was possible to verify that caregivers also needs guidance and support to deal with the problems provided by caring for the others.