Parkinson Disease Essay

James Parkinson first discovered Parkinson's Disease in 1817. Parkinson's Disease is a common neurologic disorder for the elderly. It is a disorder of the brain characterized by shaking and difficulty with walking, movement, and coordination. This disease is associated with damage to a part of the brain that controls muscle movement. Parkinson's Disease is a chronic illness that is still being extensively studied.

Another cause can be the existence of Lewy bodies in the patients brain. Lewy bodies are bundles of certain substances among brain cells. Within Lewy bodies a protein termed alpha-synuclein is present (Mayo Clinic, 2014). Researchers say that synuclein is an immense factor in Parkinson’s disease. Environmental toxins can also increase the decay of neurons. A few of the toxins that have been associated with Parkinson’s disease consist of carbon disulfide, commonly found in many gases released from the earth’s surface, manganese, found in iron and steel, and carbon monoxide, which is the gas produced by cars (WebMD, 2014). All of these factors lead to patients showing signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease is extremely important in terms of treating the symptoms before the disease gets worse. It is common for patients with PD to have motor symptoms such as gait disorder, which comes from muscle stiffness/rigidity, bradykinesia, postural imbalance, etc. Gait disorders can generally help determine how far the neurological disorder has affected the motor function and control of the individual. Many physicians in general clinics determine if a patient has PD or if it has progressed through evaluating the patients gait pattern, focused on a direct path walking. The problem with this way of diagnosis is that direct paths would generally require the clinic to have a space of 100-meter length for the patient to walk;

Some experts believe this disease is related to the inhalation of pesticides, while others believe it results from the inhalation of chemical elements such as copper, lead, or manganese. It has been linked to heredity. It is believed that 15% of those diagnosed with the disease have a family history of the mutated gene. Scientists believe there are two types of carriers for this gene that determines a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease. The first type of carrier guarantees a diagnosis, whereas the second type of carrier only increases the chance of being diagnosed. This theory has yet to be

Symptom severity varies person-to-person and early signs sometimes go unnoticed. Usually the symptoms will begin unilaterally and eventually progress to both sides, with the original side remaining worse (Tagliati, 2007). People with PD also have a slumped posture with an abnormally slow gait with shuffling feet. They also may suffer from an issue called freezing. Freezing causes the person to be frozen in place involuntarily for a moment (National Parkinson’s Foundation). Because Parkinson’s causes bradykinesia, or slowing in motion, everyday task take more energy and time to complete. Tasks that seem simple to the healthy individual like getting out of bed is an accomplishment to those suffering with this disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system, specifically the movement. The most common and most notable symptom is the tremor. The tremor is often found in the arm or hand. Symptoms of Parkinson’s have appeared throughout history. In India, as early as 5000 B.C. certain symptoms of Parkinson’s have showed up. Scientists and researchers

Parkinson’s Disease is known as one of the most common progressive and chronic neurodegenerative disorders. It belongs to a group of conditions known as movement disorders. Parkinson disease is a component of hypokinetic disorder because it causes a decreased in bodily movement. It affects people who are usually over the age of 50. It can impair an individual motor as well as non-motor function. Some of the primary symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are characterized by tremors or trembling in hands, legs and arms. In early symptoms the tremor can be unilateral, appearing in one side of body but progression in the disease can cause it to spread to both sides; rigidity or a resistant to movement affects most people with Parkinson’s disease,

When the neurons die, they produce something called dopamines. A dopamine is a neurotransmitter. They send messages to the brain that disrupts coordination and movement. The part of the brain that the neurons are affected is called the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra is in the brain stem, right above the spinal cord. These parts are essential to the functioning of the central nervous system. With the progression of this disease, the dopamine levels decrease, and the person is unable to control their movement . (http://www.pdf.org/about_pd)

An important finding in past decades is that Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not just a disease of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). Significant neuronal loss (≈80%) in the locus coerueus (LC) occurs in PD. Neurodegenerration of LC neurons starts earlier with a greater magnitude than that in the SNpc. Evidence to support this pathogenesis in PD also includes: 1) Lewy bodies, a typical pathologic alteration of PD, accumulate with a greater extent in the LC before their appearance in the SNpc. 2) The non-motor symptoms, closely correlated with loss of LC neurons, often occur many years before the onset of motor dysfunction. 3) Animal PD models showed an earlier loss of LC neurons than the SNpc. Together, these

Parkinson’s disease is growing in the elderly population other than Alzheimer's. Parkinson’s is an incurable disease, in the journal article “Parkinson’s disease risk from ambient exposure to pesticides”, Parkinson’s is defined as “a common movement disorder associated with the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons of a substantia nigra” (Wang et al, p. 548, 2011). The national library of medicine indicated symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include “trembling of hands, arms, legs, jaw and face, stiffness of the arms, legs and trunk, slowness of movement, and poor balance and coordination (“National Library of Medicine,” 2014). Even though some may hear or even see a person with Parkinson’s disease (PD), there is a lack of knowledge about who is

The chief neurotransmitter—or carrier of nerve signals—in this area of the brain is dopamine, which is deficient in people who have Parkinson's. The cause of this deficiency is not known, but research suggests that several factors may reinforce each other to produce Parkinson's disease. There may be a genetic predisposition for some forms of the disease—between 15 and 20 percent of people with Parkinson's are closely related to an individual who displays the disease's characteristic symptoms. In 1996 scientists identified a gene associated with a rare form of Parkinson's disease. Genetic predisposition may be limited only to rare forms of the disease, however. A 1999 study found that the most common form of Parkinson's disease is not inherited, suggesting that exposure to certain environmental agents may be a primary cause.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most frequent movement disorder and the second most common neurodegenerative disease (Bueler 2009). Over 1% of the entire population over the age of 60, and up to 5% of age 80, is affected by PD (Wood-Kaczmar, Gandhi et al. 2006). The pathogenesis of PD remains unclear, but can be categorized as sporadic, being the most common form, and Mendelian, which accounts for 5-10% of all PD cases (Guo 2008). The studies of Mendelian onset of PD have lead to the identification of five genes being linked to this neurodegenerative disease (Guo 2008). α-Synuclein (SNCA) and Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) mediate autosomal dominant forms of PD. PTEN-induced putative kinase 1 (PINK1),

Author Lorraine V. Kalia wrote in The Lancet Journal on April 20, 2015 on Parkinson’s disease, she explains the fundamentals of the disease in which she highlights that the disease is more than a genetic disease but also influenced by environmental factors. Parkinson’s disease is classified as a neurodegenerative disease that affects motor functions in the body. It is caused from the death of dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra or the brain’s control center. The cause of the death of the neurons is still unknown; this makes the treatment and diagnosis of this disease much harder in the early stages. The death of neurons leads to a motor function It is diagnosed in the late stage that is accompanied by trembling, rigidity, slowness

There have been genetic abnormalities linked to Parkinson’s in a small handful of families; however, “the vast majority of people with Parkinson's disease do not have one of these identified genetic abnormalities.” Along with a probable genetic link, some researchers suspect that certain toxins, either external or internal, can cause the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. The toxins linked are manganese, carbon monoxide, carbon disulfide, and other pesticides. It is also believed that oxidative stress can cause Parkinson’s disease. Oxidation is a process where free radicals, or unstable molecules that lack one neuron, try to replace an electron, causing a reaction with other molecules. Free radicals are normal in the brain and body but are normally rid by the brain and body by certain mechanisms. For people with Parkinson’s, the mechanisms are believed to not work or the body creates too many free radicals. This causes damage to the tissues, including neurons.

Parkinson disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized mainly by physical and psychological disabilities. This disorder was named after James Parkinson, an English physician who first described it as shaking palsy in 1817 (Goetz, Factr, and Weiner, 2002). Jean- Martin Charcot, who was a French neurologist, then progressed and further refined the description of the disease and identified other clinical features of PD (Goetz, Factr, and Weiner, 2002). PD involves the loss of cells that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine in a part of the brain stem called the substansia nigra, which results in several signs and symptoms (Byrd, Marks, and Starr, 2000). It is manifested clinically by tremor,