Community-dwelling PD patients encounter a variety of changes in care such as changes in the level of unpaid care, the purchase of tools, modification of pharmacotherapy or admission to hospital. These changes have an impact on patients’ lives, no matter the apparent complexity of the change. Three themes related to patients’ coping influence their experiences of the changes in care and the situation afterward: the ability to anticipate, the ability to initiate and the ability to act independently. Being able to anticipate, initiate and independently handle a change in care contribute to a sense of control and acceptance of the post-change situation. Patients with mild-staged disease, who succeed to initiate a change in care, have realistic expectations of it. However, when a healthcare provider initiates a change without explicitly discussing what can be expected, patients’ expectations are unrealistically high and unmet.