ABSTRACT
Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by four major motor symptoms : resting tremor, rigidity, akinesia and postural instability. As the treatment period for Parkinson's disease is prolonged,psychological symptoms and motor complications occur frequently. Wearing-off fluctuations are the major motor complications caused by the shortening of levodopa efficacy time. They have serious influence on the quality of life (QOL) of patients with Parkinson's disease. There have been numerous reports on treatment of the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia (BPSD) with Kampo medicine. There have also been recent reports on treatment of the behavioral and psychological symptoms of Parkinson's with the Kampo medicine, yokukansan. On the other hand, there are few reports on treatment of the motor symptoms and motor complications of Parkinson's with yokukansan. We experienced two cases in which the levodopa-induced hallucinations and wearing-off fluctuations in Parkinson's sufferers were improved conspicuously with this Kampo medicine. These findings suggest that yokukansan improves both levodopa-induced psychological symptoms and motor complications by achieving curative effect with levodopa/carbidopa.