Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not a single disease, rather it is a syndrome of multiple causes, which have in common the death of dopaminergic brain neurons (neurons that enable dopamine-related activities). https://moodle.cord.edu/pluginfile.php/468397/mod_resource/content/1/ox%20stress%20and%20inflammation%20in%20parkinsons.pdf
PD has both motor and non-motor symptoms:
- Motor such as postural instability, rigidity, and tremor
- Non-motor such as constipation, rapid eye-movement sleep behavior disorder, and depression
According to the same source as above, PD is a neurodegenerative and multisystem disorder that spreads over time and affects movement (motor) only at relatively late stage of the disease. It is more common in men than in women due to the protective effects of estrogen in women.
Treatment:
- There is no cure for PD
- The current medications are mainly to control the symptoms of the disease.
Risk factors for developing PD:
- Environmental factors
- Age
- Genetics
Are we going to be protected from PD in the future?
The topic of the week in my neurochemistry class was PD. The discussion on the disease was helpful in terms of ena bling us, students, to have a broader view on PD. PD is more common in industrialized countries. As we discussed, this could be due to the life style in those countries. Notion of this fact brings up an important question, which was asked by my professor; are we all heading to the same direction since we are living and aging in this country as well? Does it mean that the current life style including diet, transportation, environmental aspects, and high life expectancy would provide perfect condition to develop neurodegenerative disease such as PD? These questions are needed to be raised more often in our society.
Why does not most people know about PD?
As we discussed, there has not been much work done on raising awareness on PD. The reason for this could be the non-motor symptoms of the disease. The causes of the non-motor symptoms are not well understood due to its complicated and multisystem disorder roots. The motor symptoms such as movement is impacted at late stages of the disease.
Raising awareness would be helpful because then people know more about its symptoms and this could help in diagnosis as well as the control of its progression. This a fact going on everywhere, especially in industrialized countries. Ignoring and lack of activities, which would increase awareness will not help in long run. This would also help families and individuals suffering from this disease in terms of dealing with the symptoms.
