Parkinson's Basics
What is Parkinson's?
What is the history of Parkinson's?
What are some of the other names for Parkinson's?
It's generally called Parkinsons Disease and nothing else these days, but in the past, it was sometimes referred to as a palsy, or a shaking palsy. In one area where the name Parkinsons Disease remains sort of archaic is for medicare billing purposes; it's still listed as Paralysis agitans, and I'm not sure why that persists.
How many people have Parkinson's?
Who is at most risk for getting Parkinson's?
There are some other things that have come up along the way, but the only risk factor identified has been age. It does affect men more than women at a ratio of about three men for every two women. There may be some racial differences as well. But again, it's mostly age and not anything else clearly that places people at risk for Parkinsons disease.
Who is qualified to diagnose Parkinson's?
What are some other diseases that are mistaken for Parkinson's?
Probably most commonly would be essential tremor. We think of these as being distinctly different, but their clinical overlap can be substantial in some cases. It can be a head-scratcher to try to distinguish these two things. There are other so called degenerative diseases, or neuro-degenerative diseases. Things where parts of the brain are beginning to malfunction, usually in association with age, that can sometimes mimic findings in Parkinsons disease. These are usually far less common than Parkinsons disease but they still do show up.
What's the difference between essential tremor and Parkinson's?
Essential tremor is not regarded as a neurodegenerative disease, meaning that when we look at the brains of people with essential tremor there's not structural change that has been identified. Even when you look carefully, if you take sections from the brain of somebody with essential tremor who has passed away and look at it under a microscope, we don't see any kind of structural change. So there's some sort of chemical or circuit anomaly that is contributing to essential tremor, but it is not causing a structural change; no loss of certain brain cells or neurons that we do see in Parkinsons disease. The clinical presentation is often different. The tremor of Parkinsons disease is most often on one side of the body, right or left side, initially, then later, perhaps after a couple of years it may show up on the opposite side. The tremor of Parkinsons disease is classically thought of as being at rest when people are not using their hands. In contrast, essential tremor usually begins on both sides, both hands, and is more evident to people when they are actually using their hands, when they go to put a key in a lock or lift a cup of coffee to their lips for example, or eat soup with a spoon, then the tremor becomes apparent, but at rest the tremor is much less or even absent.
