TRANSEURO: Focup group interviews on Parkinson's disease

The project is about how patients and the public view the present biomedical research on the possibility to treat and even cure Parkinson's disesase with cell transplants in the brain. The project is part of a European research consortium called TRANSEURO within the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme.

Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease that affects about 1 % of all individuals above the age of 65. Parkinson's disease is expected to become even more common when the population gets older and people live longer. The loss of dopamine production in the brain is the central feature of the disease. There are different treatments by the use of the medicine levodopa. But there are also neurosurgical treatments. Cell transplantation is one of these and it is still very experimental. The practice of cell transplantation can be very charged ethically. Cells can be used from aborted foetus, but it can also be about how individuals view themselves as possible recipients of the nervcells that are supposed to start the dopamine production in the brain. In the project we investigate the attitudes of patients, relatives and the public toward the ongoing biomedical research on cell transplants. The method of studying this topic is focus group interviews.