Education and Empowerment of Patient’s with Parkinson’s disease

Empowerment is a concept which one frequently encounters in various health-related fields. Despite being frequently used, the context and what it means is quite often unclear and may vary among authors, probably because of difficulty in defining the concept. In this chapter, we approach empowerment based on the conceptual analysis of Tengland,1 wherein empowerment is discussed as a process by which a person (or group) A acts towards another person (or group) B in order to support the latter in improving their control over the determinants of their quality of life and this process leads to a reduction in A’s influence over B with regards to goal formulation and decision making, and B gains some control over the situation, process or goal. For most individuals, the important determinants of their quality of life include: Health, both physical and mental, home or living space, work and income, close relationships, leisure and values. As one reads through these determinants, one quickly realizes that in Parkinson’s disease (PD) many of these areas can be significantly affected. Healthcare providers can play an important role in the process of empowering patients with PD.