Monday, March 18, 2024

The Start Of Parkinson’s Disease

Causes Of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is caused by a loss of nerve cells in part of the brain called the substantia nigra. This leads to a reduction in a chemical called dopamine in the brain.

Dopamine plays a vital role in regulating the movement of the body. A reduction in dopamine is responsible for many of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Exactly what causes the loss of nerve cells is unclear. Most experts think that a combination of genetic and environmental factors is responsible.

Exercise And Healthy Eating

Regular exercise is particularly important in helping relieve muscle stiffness, improving your mood, and relieving stress.

There are many activities you can do to help keep yourself fit, ranging from more active sports like tennis and cycling, to less strenuous activities such as walking, gardening and yoga.

You should also try to eat a balanced diet containing all the food groups to give your body the nutrition it needs to stay healthy.

How Is Parkinson’s Disease Managed

Your doctors will tailor your treatment based on your individual circumstances. You will manage your condition best if you have the support of a team, which may include a general practitioner, neurologist, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, psychologist, specialist nurse and dietitian.

While there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, symptoms can be treated with a combination of the following.

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Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms Everyone Should Know

Parkinsons disease symptoms can include tremor and trouble with movement, along with emotional and cognitive changes.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms can vary significantly from person to person. Some people may have range of motor symptoms, like tremor, stiffness, and slow movements. Others may also experience the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, such as anxiety, cognitive changes, and loss of smell.

It has to do with a chemical messenger known as dopamine, which plays a role in the brain’s ability to control movement, coordination, and emotional responses. In Parkinson’s disease, the brain cells that produce dopamine either stop doing their job or they die out, resulting in both motor and non-motor symptoms. It’s not always easy to tell if someone you care about has Parkinson’s disease. Let’s take a closer look at the symptoms of the disease and signs that someone should make an appointment with their doctor.

Diagnosing Early Onset Parkinsons Disease

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There is no single test to detect Parkinsons. A diagnosis may be difficult and take a while. The condition is usually diagnosed by a neurologist based on a review of your symptoms and a physical exam.

A DaTscan to visualize your brains dopamine system may help confirm diagnosis. Blood tests and other imaging tests, such as an MRI scan, dont diagnose Parkinsons. However, they may be used to rule out other conditions.

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Other Typical Symptoms Of Parkinson’s

Tremor is an uncontrollable movement that affects a part of the body. A Parkinsons tremor typically starts in the hand before spreading to affect the rest of the arm, or down to the foot on the same side of the body.

There is no cure for a tremor, but there are ways to manage the symptom with support from a specialist or Parkinsons nurse.

Slowness of movement also known as bradykinesia may mean that it takes someone with Parkinson’s longer to do things. For example, they might struggle with coordination, walking may become more like a shuffle or walking speed may slow down.

Everyday tasks, such as paying for items at a check-out or walking to a bus stop, might take longer to do.

Parkinsons causes stiff muscles, inflexibility and cramps. This can make certain tasks such as writing, doing up buttons or tying shoe laces, hard to do. Rigidity can stop muscles from stretching and relaxing. It can be particularly noticeable, for example, if you struggle to turn over or get in and out of bed.

Symptoms and the rate at which they develop will vary from person to person. The most important thing to do if youre worried you have Parkinsons is to speak to your GP.

Alda Went To A Doctor After He Acted Out One Of His Dreams In His Sleep

Six years ago, when Alda was 79, he read a New York Times article by personal health columnist that explained that acting out dreams can be an early sign of Parkinson’s, a disease of the progressive nervous system that causes damage in the brain and impacts movement. It struck a chord with Alda, who remembered recently doing so.

“I had dreamed somebody was attacking me, and in the dream I threw a sack of potatoes at him,” he told AARP in May 2020. “In reality, I threw a pillow at my wife.” This encouraged Alda to go to a neurologist for a brain scan and to not take no for an answer.

” examined me and said, ‘I don’t think you need a scan. You don’t have any symptoms,'” Alda explained to AARP. “I said, ‘Well, I’d really like the scan anyway.’ And he called me back and said, ‘Boy, you really got it.'”

REM sleep behavior disorder, which is the tendency to act out dreams while asleep, is one pre-diagnostic symptom of Parkinson’s. Melissa J. Nirenberg, MD, PhD, Parkinson’s specialist at New York University Medical Center told the NYT that “up to 80 percent of people with the sleep disorder get Parkinson’s or a similar neurodegenerative disease.” The Parkinson’s Foundation notes that trouble sleeping is a common symptom of Parkinson’s, along with tremors, difficulty walking, changes in handwriting, and loss of smell.

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Treatment Options For Early Onset Parkinsons Disease

Parkinsons treatment aims to slow the diseases progression. Medication treatment options may include the following:

  • Levodopa is a chemical thats converted to dopamine in the brain. People with early onset Parkinsons may experience more negative side effects, such as involuntary movements.
  • MAO-B inhibitors can help reduce the breakdown of dopamine in the brain.
  • Catechol-O-methyltransferase inhibitors can help extend Levodopas effects on the brain.
  • Anticholinergics can help reduce tremors.
  • Amantadine may be used to improve muscle control and relieve stiffness.

Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease

Parkinson’s disease has four main symptoms:

  • Tremor in hands, arms, legs, jaw, or head
  • Stiffness of the limbs and trunk
  • Slowness of movement
  • Impaired balance and coordination, sometimes leading to falls

Other symptoms may include depression and other emotional changes difficulty swallowing, chewing, and speaking urinary problems or constipation skin problems and sleep disruptions.

Symptoms of Parkinsons and the rate of progression differ among individuals. Sometimes people dismiss early symptoms of Parkinson’s as the effects of normal aging. In most cases, there are no medical tests to definitively detect the disease, so it can be difficult to diagnose accurately.

Early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are subtle and occur gradually. For example, affected people may feel mild tremors or have difficulty getting out of a chair. They may notice that they speak too softly, or that their handwriting is slow and looks cramped or small. Friends or family members may be the first to notice changes in someone with early Parkinson’s. They may see that the person’s face lacks expression and animation, or that the person does not move an arm or leg normally.

People with Parkinson’s often develop a parkinsonian gait that includes a tendency to lean forward, small quick steps as if hurrying forward, and reduced swinging of the arms. They also may have trouble initiating or continuing movement.

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The Early Signs Of Parkinsons Disease

Health Check Certified By: Dr. Gerald Morris

Parkinsons diseasea chronic and progressive brain disorder that causes loss of muscle controlaffects nearly one million people in the U.S. This disease results in the death and malfunction of nerve cells in the brain, many of which produce dopamine, a chemical responsible for controlling movement and coordination.

While symptoms such as tremors, slowed movement and speech problems are among the most common symptoms of Parkinsons, they tend to present themselves only once the disease has progressed. To detect Parkinsons disease in the early stages of development, the following are 12 signs to keep an eye out for.

Who Gets Parkinson’s Disease

Approximately one million Americans have Parkinson’s disease, including three out of every 100 people over the age of 60. Over 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease each year. There is increasing evidence that Parkinson’s disease may be inherited . Men are slightly more likely to develop the disease than women.

The average age at which it is diagnosed is 60. However, about 4% of those with Parkinson’s disease are diagnosed before age 50, and about half of those are diagnosed before age 40. When the diagnosis is made early, it is referred to as “young-onset” Parkinson’s disease.

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Young Onset Parkinsons : An Introduction

Although the average age to develop Parkinsons is around 60, young onset Parkinsons occurs in 5-10% of people diagnosed. 20% are under the age of 50. Some challenges in Parkinsons are universal, regardless of age, but there are a number of issues specific to younger people.

Generally, Parkinsons proceeds more slowly in younger people. While no two people are the same, someone whose onset age is 40 can expect to work for another 15-20 years on average. For someone with an onset age of 60, the average figure would be half that. These figures are based on the kinds of treatment available today. Future treatment will be even more effective in prolonging the productive life of people with Parkinsons.

Larry Gifford hosts a panel discussion on Living Well with Young Onset Parkinsons in May of 2020.

The following characteristics tend to be present in young onset Parkinsons:

  • Young onset Parkinsons is less likely to lead to dementia and balance problems
  • It is more likely to include focal dystonia, which is cramping or abnormal posturing of one part of the body.
  • Younger people are more sensitive to the benefits of Parkinson medications, but they tend to experience the dyskinetic side effects of levodopa sooner than older people.
  • They also tend to experience dose-related fluctuations at an earlier stage of the disease, including wearing off* and the on-off effect. See Parkinson Canada Information Sheet, Parkinsons Medications: What you need to know!
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History Of Parkinson’s Disease

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James ParkinsonEssay on the Shaking Palsy

The history of Parkinson’s disease expands from 1817, when British apothecary James Parkinson published An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, to modern times. Before Parkinson’s descriptions, others had already described features of the disease that would bear his name, while the 20th century greatly improved knowledge of the disease and its treatments. PD was then known as paralysis agitans . The term “Parkinson’s disease” was coined in 1865 by William Sanders and later popularized by French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. Paralysis

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Rates Of Parkinsons Disease Are Exploding A Common Chemical May Be To Blame

Researchers believe a factor is a chemical used in drycleaning and household products such as shoe polishes and carpet cleaners in the US

Asked about the future of Parkinsons disease in the US, Dr Ray Dorsey says, Were on the tip of a very, very large iceberg.

Dorsey, a neurologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center and author of Ending Parkinsons Disease, believes a Parkinsons epidemic is on the horizon. Parkinsons is already the fastest-growing neurological disorder in the world in the US, the number of people with Parkinsons has increased 35% the last 10 years, says Dorsey, and We think over the next 25 years it will double again.

Most cases of Parkinsons disease are considered idiopathic they lack a clear cause. Yet researchers increasingly believe that one factor is environmental exposure to trichloroethylene , a chemical compound used in industrial degreasing, dry-cleaning and household products such as some shoe polishes and carpet cleaners.

To date, the clearest evidence around the risk of TCE to human health is derived from workers who are exposed to the chemical in the work-place. A 2008 peer-reviewed study in the Annals of Neurology, for example, found that TCE is a risk factor for parkinsonism. And a 2011 study echoed those results, finding a six-fold increase in the risk of developing Parkinsons in individuals exposed in the workplace to trichloroethylene .

  • Adrienne Matei is a freelance journalist

What Are The Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease

Symptoms of Parkinsons disease and the rate of decline vary widely from person to person. The most common symptoms include:

Other symptoms include:

  • Speech/vocal changes: Speech may be quick, become slurred or be soft in tone. You may hesitate before speaking. The pitch of your voice may become unchanged .
  • Handwriting changes: You handwriting may become smaller and more difficult to read.
  • Depression and anxiety.
  • Sleeping disturbances including disrupted sleep, acting out your dreams, and restless leg syndrome.
  • Pain, lack of interest , fatigue, change in weight, vision changes.
  • Low blood pressure.

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Fda Oks Phase 2 Trial Of Oral Ne3107 In Easing Inflammation

In preclinical studies, NE3107 was found to lessen inflammation within the nervous system and ease insulin resistance, slowing neurodegeneration and improving nerve function.

In a primate model of Parkinsons, NE3107 in combination with levodopa led to a greater improvement in motor control than either therapy alone. Furthermore, the combination reduced the severity of levodopa-induced dyskinesia, or spontaneous involuntary movements, without decreasing the medications benefit.

The therapy also showed neuroprotective activity, preserving roughly twice as many dopamine-producing neurons the nerve cells affected in Parkinsons compared with a placebo.

The NM201 Phase 2 trial is a multi-center, placebo-controlled study, looking at the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of NE3107 in Parkinsons. Pharmacokinetics refers to the movement of a medicine into, through, and out of the body.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the trial in October last year.

Participants will be treated with a combination of carbidopa/levodopa and NE3107 or a placebo. The company intends to enroll 40 adults, ages 30-75, currently taking immediate-release levodopa/carbidopa with defined off periods, or periods when Parkinsons medications are no longer effective and symptoms re-emerge.

What Medications Are Used To Treat Parkinsons Disease

Medications are the main treatment method for patients with Parkinsons disease. Your doctor will work closely with you to develop a treatment plan best suited for you based on the severity of your disease at the time of diagnosis, side effects of the drug class and success or failure of symptom control of the medications you try.

Medications combat Parkinsons disease by:

  • Helping nerve cells in the brain make dopamine.
  • Mimicking the effects of dopamine in the brain.
  • Blocking an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the brain.
  • Reducing some specific symptoms of Parkinsons disease.

Levodopa: Levodopa is a main treatment for the slowness of movement, tremor, and stiffness symptoms of Parkinsons disease. Nerve cells use levodopa to make dopamine, which replenishes the low amount found in the brain of persons with Parkinsons disease. Levodopa is usually taken with carbidopa to allow more levodopa to reach the brain and to prevent or reduce the nausea and vomiting, low blood pressure and other side effects of levodopa. Sinemet® is available in an immediate release formula and a long-acting, controlled release formula. Rytary® is a newer version of levodopa/carbidopa that is a longer-acting capsule. The newest addition is Inbrija®, which is inhaled levodopa. It is used by people already taking regular carbidopa/levodopa for when they have off episodes .

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Whats Different About Young

The age of diagnosis matters for a variety of reasons, from probable causes of early cases to symptoms and treatment:

  • Genetics. As with any case of Parkinsons disease, the exact cause is usually unknown. That said, The young-onset cases of Parkinsons disease are, on average, a bit more likely to be familial or genetic, says Gregory Pontone, M.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Movement Disorders Psychiatry Clinic.
  • Symptoms. In many patients with YOPD, dystonia is an early symptom. People with YOPD also report more dyskinesia . They also tend to exhibit cognitive problems, such as dementia and memory issues, less frequently.
  • Progression. Patients with young-onset Parkinsons appear to have a slower progression of the disease over time, says Pontone. They tend to have a milder course, staying functional and cognitively intact for much longer.
  • Treatment. Most patients with Parkinsons take the medication levodopa. However, other drugs, such as MAO-B inhibitors, anticholinergics, amantadine, and dopamine receptor agonists, may be used before levodopa.

Studies Of Patients With Non

The Parkinsons Associated Risk Study is an ongoing large study whose goal is to evaluate specific tests for their ability to predict an increased risk of PD. The ultimate goal is to find a set of tests that can predict the future development of PD. The study has evaluated smell tests, questionnaires that probe mood, bowel habits and sleep disorders, as well as the dopamine transporter imaging test, commonly referred to as DaTscan.

A DaTscan involves injecting a small amount of a radioactive tracer into the bloodstream. The tracer makes its way into the brain and binds to the dopamine transporters, which are molecules on the surface of the dopamine neurons. In PD, there are fewer of these neurons and therefore there is less uptake of the tracer in the brain. A brain scan then determines if the amount of uptake of the tracer is normal or decreased. Currently, this test is approved to distinguish between PD and a neurologic condition known as essential tremor, a tremor disorder which is not caused by an abnormality of the dopamine system.

DaTscan is not yet approved to determine if patients who are experiencing only the non-motor symptoms of PD, in fact have PD. However, it is known that a DaTscan can be abnormal even before motor symptoms are present. The PARS study is investigating whether in the future, a DaTscan can be part of an algorithm to determine who is at risk of developing PD.

Tips and takeaways

Dr. Rebecca Gilbert

APDA Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer

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