What You Should Know About Parkinson’s Disease

A person with Parkinson’s disease will develop signs and symptoms of the disease slowly, often with the first ones being barely noticeable. Hand tremors are usually the more well known of the first signs of the disease to manifest. Another common sign of Parkinson’s is the slowness or freezing action when the person is walking and goes to change direction – there is a "freezing movement" that is common to Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Another common sign of the disease is that friends and family may notice that there seems to be little expression in the face anymore and the person walks without swinging the arms to the side, as is the normal walking stance. Next time you are out at a mall watch people walk and pay attention to what their arms do.

The signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s become worse over time because Parkinson’s is a progressive disease and there is no cure for this disease. When doctors treat patients with PD, they treat to bring relief from the symptoms. There are many medications used to alleviate the symptoms even if just for a little while.

The major signs or symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include the characteristic tremors that can occur in the arms, hands or legs of the person with the disease. The individual can have a slowed motion when walking that will include taking short steps and having a shuffling to the movement of their feet while walking. Their feet may seem to freeze to the floor and they may have difficulty taking that first step when trying to move. They may have rigid muscles that are stiff. Limbs and the neck can experience this stiffness. The stiffness can be so severe that the person may have a great deal of difficulty with range of motion movements and may even experience a great deal of pain when trying to move.

The individual may also experience impaired balance and posture or a loss of automatic movements such as smiling, swinging of arms and blinking of eyes and develop a fixed stare and expressionless facial expression. They lack animation when they speak and can have speech changes such as speaking more softly or more rapidly or they may speak in a monotone with slurring or repeating of words or hesitating before they say something.

Dementia is something that occurs in the later stages of Parkinson’s disease. There may be problems with memory and the ability to have mental clarity.

A lack of a chemical messenger, called dopamine, in the brain may cause the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Researchers are not certain about what starts the connection between dopamine and Parkinson’s but genetics may play a role or environmental toxins may also have a role in the start of the disease.

What are the risk factors for Parkinson’s disease?

Age appears to be a factor because young people very rarely develop Parkinson’s disease. It typically begins at age 60 or older with occasional cases of someone 50 or younger developing the disease. Only 10% of those with Parkinson’s develop the disease under age 40 such as was the case with Michael J. Fox who was 37 when he first developed tremors and other signs of the disease.

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