Parkinsons disease is a disease that is often associated with people who have motor problems as far as trouble walking around, shaking, rigidity, and slowness. These problems are being caused by the loss and death of dopamine-generating cells in the substantial nigra. Often the severity of Parkinsons is determined by the severeness of there motor issues. They will often test if the person has trouble maintaining their balance, if they can rise from a chair easily, and if they have any tremors. If someone doesn’t present with many of these problems and maybe only has little trouble with balance, then they would be determined to maybe only have mild Parkinsons or not Parkinsons at all because they may determine it to be a different disease. The point of me saying all of this is that there is something missing in this diagnosis, and that is the issue of mental problems.
First it is important to have an idea of what exactly is causing Parkinsons disease. One area that is often looked at as a main factor in the cause of Parkinsons disease is that of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System (UPS). The main function of the UPS is to basically mark proteins with Ubiquitin so they can then be found by proteasome and then be degraded into amino acids. Problems in this system often arise when someone ages or when there is oxidative stress and bioenergetic failure. When there is UPS dysfunction protein aggregation begins. Protein aggregation is basically the accumulation of misfolded proteins which can lead to cell dysfunction resulting apoptosis and cell death which causes neurodegeneration. Neurodegeneration leads to the motor symptoms seen in Parkinsons disease and therefore this pathway is often linked to Parkinsons disease. Now it is not known exactly how this pathway could be effecting those with Parkinsons disease which brings me to talking about the mental aspect of Parkinsons disease.
There is still much to be learned about Parkinsons disease and one area of Parkinsons disease that has little known about it is the effect it has on a persons mental state. It has been eluded to that many times people with Parkinsons disease may have depression or something along those lines, but it will be determined that Parkinsons isn’t causing that issue and the depression will be treated separately. This may lead to issues because while the depression is being treated, there may be other ways that it should be treated due to the possible link with Parkinsons. This side of the Parkinsons story is often ignored and thats why I say that Parkinsons disease is one that is more than meets the eye. People may see people diagnosed with Parkinsons moving around fine because they don’t present with severe motor symptoms and think that they aren’t facing too many challenges with the disease. But there is the underlying mental effects that are often placed to the side. It is hard to find a way to diagnose the possible mental issues that come along with Parkinsons disease when so little is known about the mental side of Parkinsons disease, but hopefully in the future more knowledge will be gained giving insight into the aspect of Parkinsons disease that isn’t seen by the eye.
Parkinsons Disease: More Than Just Meets The Eye
