Project Summary
The Wyoming Parkinson’s Project (WPP) seeks to improve the lives of those with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and those connected to the PD community in Wyoming. Through PCORI Pipeline to Proposal funding, the WPP is able to bring together those interested in PD to begin the conversation about interpersonal and resource needs. The collection of voices heard during engagement luncheons informed the WPP’s list of comparative effectiveness research (CER) questions. The upcoming year the WPP will take these questions and infuse additional insight into them, further clarifying the intent, direction, and methods that will move this project into a research study.
The primary activities for Tier III will be to submit letters of intent and full funding proposals so that rigorous research can be conducted across Wyoming. The research will focus on the following CER themes: 1) alternative engagement strategies to address medication therapy management; 2) in-person and web-based delivery strategies for physical exercise programs; and 3) the use of telehealth platforms to provide speech-language pathology treatments in remote or weather-confined areas, as well as an option for in-person treatment participation as requested. All topics will compare, at a minimum, two programs that have shown promise in other settings. The WPP will work within its collaborative governance structure, with structured oversight from the University of Wyoming to provide research methods expertise, statistical analyses, and interpretation of the results. The findings from Tier III activities and the eventual research project will inform the future of PD in Wyoming.