Key Takeaways
- What is Parkinson’s disease? Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder that affects movement. While Parkinson’s primarily affects motor function, it can also lead to non-motor symptoms, including Parkinson’s disease psychosis (PDP)
- Who can get Parkinson’s disease? Parkinson’s has a higher prevalence in men and people over 50, but early-onset Parkinson’s can occur in younger people, often linked to family history.
- Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease: Physical symptoms include stiffness, balance issues, and tremors. Cognitive symptoms from Parkinson’s may progress to memory loss and dementia.
- Diagnosing Parkinson’s disease: There is no specific test for Parkinson’s. Diagnosis involves medical history, neurological exams, and imaging to rule out other conditions.
- How is Parkinson’s disease treated? Therapies like medication to manage dopamine loss and procedures like deep-brain stimulation can alleviate Parkinson’s disease symptoms.
- What are the complications of Parkinson’s disease? Up to 80% of people with Parkinson’s may develop dementia, leading to symptoms like significant cognitive and emotional challenges, including memory problems and mood changes.
Parkinson’s disease is a condition affecting the brain, like dementia. Similarly to dementia, Parkinson’s disease also more commonly affects people later in their lives. But how are Parkinson’s and dementia connected? How similar are the two conditions? Let’s find out more.
What is Parkinson’s disease?
Like Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease is a movement disorder. In Parkinson’s, the muscles tighten and become rigid, making it difficult to perform activities such as walking. This is the unique symptom in Parkinson’s. People with Parkinson’s also experience tremors. In later stages of Parkinson’s, a person may also go on to develop cognitive problems, like memory loss and dementia.
It is a chronic, progressive disease that doesn’t go away and gets worse as time goes on.
Who can get Parkinson’s disease?
Both dementia and Parkinson’s disease are more common in people over the age of 50, with the average age of onset being 60. That said, it is possible for younger people to get Parkinson’s disease, too. If Parkinson’s disease affects someone under 50, it is called early-onset Parkinson’s disease. People are more likely to get early-onset Parkinson’s disease if someone in their family already has Parkinson’s. Still, the older you are, the greater your likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease. Another factor that makes you more likely to develop Parkinson’s disease is being male – Parkinson’s disease is more common in men than women.
What are the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease?
Again, similarly to Huntington’s disease, there are physical movement symptoms in Parkinson’s. These include symptoms such as a stiff feeling in the arms, legs, and torso, along with trouble maintaining balance, and slow, stiff walking. You may also notice difficulty maintaining balance, alongside changes in handwriting. Another major symptom of Parkinson’s is having tremors that affect the jaw, face, arms, legs, and hands.
As Parkinson’s disease progresses, you could see gastrointestinal problems like constipation, problems with urination, difficulty swallowing and chewing food, weight loss, and neurological symptoms like depression, memory loss, hallucinations, and dementia.
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How is Parkinson’s disease diagnosed?
Parkinson’s disease can be difficult to diagnose. No one test can identify it. You can see how Parkinson’s disease can also easily be mistaken for another health condition. When you seek a diagnosis for Parkinson’s, your healthcare provider will probably ask about your medical history and your family history to find out if anyone else in your family has Parkinson’s disease symptoms. They’ll also do a neurological exam. To rule out other conditions, your provider might do an MRI, a computed tomography (CT) scan, or other imaging scans of the brain.
How is Parkinson’s disease treated?
Parkinson’s disease and dementia are both degenerative neurological conditions that cannot currently be cured. However, also like dementia, we have a range of therapies that can help control symptoms of Parkinson’s. Most medicines people use to treat Parkinson’s are designed to offset the loss of dopamine in the brain that Parkinson’s causes. In other cases, however, some people need surgery to manage Parkinson’s symptoms.
A procedure called deep-brain stimulation (DBS) is one way to treat Parkinson’s disease, involving wires surgically implanted into the brain. Electrical impulses will then go through the wires into the brain to control twitching movements and tremors. This said, DBS still isn’t considered a cure for Parkinson’s. What’s more, people with Parkinson’s need to meet specific, stringent clinical criteria to be a candidate for DBS. DBS also isn’t used for people with significant dementia.
Other surgeries could involve destroying small areas of the brain that are currently causing Parkinson’s symptoms. However, surgery like this has been largely superseded by deep-brain stimulation.
What are the complications of Parkinson’s disease?
So, as the disease progresses, Parkinson’s can cause dementia in about 4 out of 5 people. But what other complications can Parkinson’s disease cause? Other cognitive problems, such as trouble with concentration and forgetfulness, might happen before dementia. The dementia that Parkinson’s disease causes might also make it hard to maintain relationships, due to the profound memory loss it causes.
Dementia and Parkinson’s disease can also lead to problems with understanding abstract concepts, communicating and speaking with others, problem-solving, paying attention, and forgetfulness.
Memory changes and confusion are also common, leading to disorientation, accompanied by impairment in both short-term and long-term memory.
Dementia and Parkinson’s disease can also mean mood changes, paranoia, and hallucinations, causing your loved one to become irritable, agitated, or even aggressive, and causing delusions, where you believe something strange or unrealistic. Language challenges are common, such as difficulty understanding complex sentences and problems naming objects. Subtle visual perception difficulties, including visual misperceptions or illusions, are also common.
At some point, a person with Parkinson’s disease and dementia won’t be able to live by themselves, even if they are still physically capable of doing daily tasks. At this stage, you may be interested in learning more about permanent care.
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