Telemedicine in French memory clinics during Covid-19 crisis

Background In early 2020, COVID-19 outbreak struck France leading to a national lockdown between March 17th and May 11th. While standard in-person medical consultation was complicated, telemedicine dramatically expanded. In order to evaluate the impact of this unpreceded situation on clinical practice and use of psychoactive drug in dementia care, we conducted a nationwide clinical prospective and retrospective study. Method During the lockdown period, telemedicine patients? demographic and clinical data were retrospectively collected from 7 French memory clinics (telemedicine cohort). Clinical diagnoses, treatment changes, cognitive modifications since last consultations and living conditions during the lockdown were systematically retrieved. In Rouen site, we also included patients only reached by a secretary to propose a postponed visit after lockdown (no-telemedicine cohort) and patients seen in 2019 during the same period of the year (Rouen-2019). The primary outcome was any change in psychoactive drug and a specific analysis on sedative treatment increase was the secondary outcome, defined as any increase in the prescriptions of antipsychotics or benzodiazepines. Result The telemedicine cohort included 874 patients (73 from Rouen), while no-telemedicine control cohort and Rouen-2019 cohorts included respectively 86 and 234 patients (table 1). In the telemedicine cohort, treatments were modified for 10.7% of the patients with more treatment modification among the patients living with a relative (+5.8% (CI95% [0.2%;11.4%] p=0.04) and among the patients with Alzheimer?s disease (+12.2% (CI95% [7.1%;17.3%] p<0.001). When comparing therapeutic strategies in 2020 and 2019 for Rouen site, 24.6% of the patients had their treatment modified in 2020 and 12.4% in 2019. That difference was however not statically significant with an adjusted percentage difference of -4% (CI95% [-10.8%;3.4%] p=0.27, including the telemedicine and no-telemedicine cohorts for 2020. Conclusion Telemedicine seems to have had only minor negative impacts on clinical practice in memory clinics.

Telemedicine in French Memory Clinics During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This multicenter study was conducted in French memory clinics during the first COVID-2019 lockdown (March-May 2020). The objective was to evaluate the effect of a telemedicine consultation on treatment modification in dementia care. Among 874 patients who had a telemedicine consultation, 103 (10.7%) had treatment modifications, in particular those living with a relative or diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. A control group of patients referred March-May 2019 was also included. Treatment modification rate was similar between periods with an adjusted percentage difference of -4% (p = 0.27). Telemedicine consultations allowed treatment modifications with only a minor short-term negative impact on therapeutic strategies.

A French survey on the lockdown consequences of COVID-19 pandemic in Parkinson's disease. The ERCOPARK study.

BACKGROUND: In 2020 the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic imposed a total and sudden lockdown. We aimed to investigate the consequences of the first COVID-19 lockdown (mid-March - mid-April 2020) on motor and non-motor symptoms (NMS) in a cohort of French people with Parkinson's disease (PwP). METHODS: PwP were enrolled either by an on-line survey sent from the national France Parkinson association (FP) to reach the French community of PwP or as part of outpatients' telemedicine visits followed by an hospital-based Parkinson Expert Center (PEC). All patients were evaluated using the same standardized questionnaire assessing motor and NMS (including a list of most disabling, new or worsened symptoms and Patient's Global Impression-Improvement scales [PGI-I]) psycho-social queries and quality of life. RESULTS: 2653 PwP were included: 441 (16.6%) in the PEC group and 2122 (83.4%) in the community-based group. Physiotherapy was interrupted among 88.6% of the patients. 40.9% referred a clinical modification of their symptoms. Based on the questionnaire, pain (9.3%), rigidity (9.1%) and tremor (8.5%) were the three most frequently new or worsened reported symptoms. Based on the PGI-I, the motor symptoms were the most affected domain, followed by pain and psychic state. PwP in community-based group tended to have more frequent worsening for motor symptoms, motor complications, pain and confusion than those of the PEC group. CONCLUSIONS: The first COVID-19 lockdown had a negative impact on motor and NMS of PwP. Efforts should be allocated to avoid interruption of care, including physiotherapy and physical activities and implement telemedicine. .