To describe the patient burden of moderate-to-advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) stratified by Hoehn and Yahr (H&Y) stage.

There is limited literature describing the burden of moderate-to-advanced PD. We used data from The Parkinson’s Foundation Parkinson’s Outcomes Project (PF-POP) to assess the relationship of H&Y stage to subjective and objective measures of disease burden.

We analyzed data from patients in the PF-POP with at least 3 years of post-index follow-up who met the following criteria: living in the US; >90% certainty of idiopathic PD; PD diagnosis for ≥5 years at index date; and H&Y stage 2 or greater off medication at index date. All data are reported at index.

1181 patients met study criteria: 67% were male and 93% were White. Mean age was 65 years and mean time since PD diagnosis was 10 years; the majority were classified as H&Y stage 2 (56%) or 3 (39%), with 5% stage 4. Mean PDQ-39 Summary Index (quality of life assessment) score was 5.1 overall and 4.1, 6.0, and 8.9 for H&Y stage 2, 3, or 4, respectively. Patients reporting any falls in the prior 3 months (43% overall; 26%, 62%, and 80% for H&Y 2, 3, or 4, respectively) and the number of hospital visits (0.29 overall and 0.23, 0.32, 0.59, respectively) and emergency room visits (0.33 overall and 0.27, 0.38, 0.79, respectively) in the prior 12 months also appeared to increase with H&Y stage.