Parkinson's Disease
- Diagnosis, Imaging, Screening
- General Information
- Guidelines
- Internet Sites
- Risk Factors
- Treatment - Daily Report
Treatment is updated daily with the most recent articles listed on top.
To view only the last month's articles for the other sub-topics, go to our Monthly Online Newsletters page
If you have any questions regarding our Search Reports, please contact us at info@infomedsearch.com.
Parkinson's Disease
NIH - Medical Encyclopedia Parkinson's disease
"Parkinson's disease is a disorder of the brain characterized by shaking (tremor) and difficulty with walking, movement, and coordination. The disease is associated with damage to a part of the brain that is involved with movement. … Some people with Parkinson's disease become severely depressed. This may be due to loss of dopamine in certain brain areas involved with pleasure and mood. Lack of dopamine can also affect motivation and the ability to make voluntary movements. Early loss of mental capacities is uncommon. However, persons with severe Parkinson's may have overall mental deterioration (including dementia and hallucinations). Dementia can also be a side effect of some of the medications used to treat the disorder. ...
Symptoms:
• Muscle rigidity • Unstable, stooped, or slumped-over posture • Loss of balance • Gait (walking pattern) changes • Shuffling walk • Slow movements • Difficulty initiating any voluntary movement • Small steps followed by the need to run to maintain balance • Freezing of movement when the movement is stopped, inability to resume movement • Muscle aches and pains (myalgia) • Shaking, tremors (varying degrees, may not be present) • Changes in facial expression • Reduced ability to show facial expressions • Voice or speech changes • Loss of fine motor skills • Frequent falls • Decline in intellectual function (may occur, can be severe) • A variety of gastrointestinal symptoms, mainly constipation.… symptoms may be difficult to assess, particularly in the elderly. For example, the tremor may not appear when the person is sitting quietly with arms in the lap. The posture changes may be similar to osteoporosis or other changes associated with aging. Lack of facial expression may be a sign of depression. An examination may show "cogwheel" rigidity (jerky, stiff movements), tremors of the Parkinson's type, and difficulty initiating or completing voluntary movements. Reflexes are essentially normal. Tests are not usually specific for Parkinson's, but they may be required to rule out other disorders that cause similar symptoms. See also essential tremor."
Highlighted Article
[Clinical criteria of Parkinson's disease.] (Ther Umsch. 2007)
"The clinical criteria of Parkinson's disease are akinesia in combination with at least one of the following three symptoms: tremor (asymmetrical resting tremor), rigidity, impairment of posture, gait and balance. Symptomatic and atypical parkinsonian syndromes are ruled out by history, clinical examination, cranial CT, MRI, SPECT or PET. Patients with Parkinson's disease respond to levodopa or dopaminagonists throughout the course of the disease."
CONTINUE YOUR INFOMEDSEARCH RESEARCH with our previous InfoMedLinks. Start with InfoMedLinks 2006.
Parkinson's Disease
General Information
NEWS:
Depressive Symptoms Might Be a Very Early Sign of Parkinson's Disease "He added that since increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease was apparent only in the year prior to onset of the disease, this supports the hypothesis that depressive symptoms might be an early part of Parkinson's disease, rather than the hypothesis that depression increases the risk of developing Parkinson's disease."
Erectile Dysfunction Associated With a Higher Future Risk of Parkinson's Disease “ “They conclude that the findings support the hypothesis that "the autonomous nervous system may have been impaired years before Parkinson's disease is clinically recognizable." ”
High-Fiber, Low-Saturated-Fat Diet May Protect Against Parkinson's Disease "A dietary pattern of high intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, fish, and poultry; low intake of saturated fat; and moderate intake of alcohol may protect against Parkinson's disease (PD), according to the results of a prospective study reported in the December issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition."
NSAID Use Associated With Reduced Risk for Parkinson's Disease "Results of a new case-control study suggest a possible protective effect of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) against the development of Parkinson's disease (PD). Regular use reduced the risk for PD up to 60% for nonaspirin NSAIDS; a protective effect for aspirin was seen only among women."
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Protect Against Parkinson's, Study Says "Another conclusion to be drawn from this finding is that a brain containing a lot of omega-6 fatty acids may be a fertile ground for Parkinson's disease. These fatty acids, abundant in foods rich in either vegetable oil or animal fat, are already under suspicion for their role in the body's inflammatory response, cardiac disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer's. In a balanced diet, the ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids should be 4 to 1. However, the average Western diet contains 10 to 20 times more omega-6's than omega-3's."
Parkinson's Disease Dementia Has Specific Symptom Clusters
ARTICLES:
Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease: a 360° view (Nature Publishing Group (a collection of papers) 2007 )
Clinical Evidence Concise: Parkinson's disease.
JOURNAL ARTICLES:
A prospective study of delusional misidentification syndromes in Parkinson's disease with dementia. (Mov Disord. 2007)
Association of olfactory dysfunction with risk for future Parkinson's disease. (Ann Neurol. 2007) “INTERPRETATION: Impaired olfaction can predate clinical PD in men by at least 4 years and may be a useful screening tool to detect those at high risk for development of PD in later life.”
Association of Parkinson's disease with symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in childhood. (J Neural Transm Suppl. 2007)
Characteristics of apathy in Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007) "Thirty-two percent of the PD patients were classified as apathetic. Apathy was more frequent in patients with dementia."
Cholinesterase inhibitors: tremor and exacerbation of Parkinson's disease. (Prescrire Int. 2007) "Tremor and dystonia are known adverse effects of cholinesterase inhibitors. (2) In patients with Parkinson's disease who have cognitive disorders, or in patients with Lewy body dementia, exacerbations of parkinsonism and tremor have been observed during treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors at normal doses."
Clinical diagnostic criteria for dementia associated with Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007) "The incidence of dementia in PD is increased up to six times, point-prevelance is close to 30%, older age and akinetic-rigid form are associated with higher risk. PD-D is characterized by impairment in attention, memory, executive and visuo-spatial functions, behavioral symptoms such as affective changes, hallucinations, and apathy are frequent."
Clinical evaluation of Parkinson’s disease dementia: association with aging and visual hallucination (Acta Neurologica Scandinavica 2007) "Conclusions – These results indicate that aging and VH are important factors associated with dementia in PD."
Coffee and tea consumption and the risk of Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007) "These results suggest that coffee drinking is associated with a lower risk of PD. More tea drinking is associated with a lower risk of PD."
Cognitive Changes in Parkinson's Disease Patients with Visual Hallucinations (Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 2007) "Conclusion: Our results support a fast impairment of complex visual functions in hallucinating PD patients, but also a progressive decline in multiple cognitive domains, which have been identified as a risk of developing dementia in PD."
Cognitive function assessment in idiopathic Parkinson's disease. (Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2007)
Cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2007) "CONCLUSIONS: Cognition is an important domain of the clinical spectrum of PD and poorer cognitive performance is associated with greater impairment in motor and non-motor domains in PD. The difference in cognitive scores between PIGD-dominant patients and tremor-dominant patients likely reflects more advanced disease."
Consumption of Dairy Products and Risk of Parkinson's Disease. (Am J Epidemiol. 2007) "These data suggest that dairy consumption may increase the risk of Parkinson's disease, particularly in men. More studies are needed to further examine these findings and to explore underlying mechanisms."
[Dementia in Parkinson's disease.] (Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen. 2007)
[Depression and apathy in Parkinson disease] (Brain Nerve. 2007)
Differential Effects of Black versus Green Tea on Risk of Parkinson's Disease in the Singapore Chinese Health Study. (Am J Epidemiol. 2007 ) “Diet had no strong influence on risk. Ingredients of black tea other than caffeine appear to be responsible for the beverage's inverse association with Parkinson's disease.”
Does gait analysis quantify motor rehabilitation efficacy in Parkinson's disease patients? (Gait Posture. 2007) " CONCLUSION: Our results confirm that gait analysis is a valid tool for evaluating changes in PD patients' ability to walk and for quantifying the improvements gained through a motor rehabilitation program."
Early impairment of cognitive functions in Parkinson's disease. (Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2007) "CONCLUSION: The clock drawing test proved to be a useful predictive tool for identifying early cognitive impairment in these individuals."
[Early-onset Parkinsonism. A report on a Spanish series.] (Rev Neurol. 2007)
Early-onset Parkinson's disease and depression. (Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2007)
Erectile Function and Risk of Parkinson's Disease (American Journal of Epidemiology 2007) "In conclusion, in this retrospective analysis in a large cohort of men, the authors observed that erectile dysfunction was associated with a higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease."
Estrogens May Modify Course of Parkinson's Disease in Women "Parkinson's disease (PD) is diagnosed approximately 2 years later in women than in men, and tends to follow a more benign course as well, according to results of a prospective, longitudinal study conducted in The Netherlands. Dr. Bastiaan R. Bloem and co-investigators suggest that these gender-specific differences may be mediated by estrogen status."
Executive dysfunction in non-demented Parkinson's disease patients with hallucinations. (Acta Neurol Scand. 2007)
Exercise May Help Ward Off Parkinson's Disease "People who exercised more than 75 percent of their fellow study participants were 20 percent less likely to develop Parkinson's, compared to those who didn't exercise. The risk of the disease was 40 percent lower in those who took part in the highest levels of moderate to vigorous activity, defined as exercise such as jogging, lap swimming, tennis and bicycling, the study found. However, there's one caveat -- the researchers found no indication that physical activity at age 40 affected the risk of developing Parkinson's."
Functional Ability Correlates with Cognitive Impairment in Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease (Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 2007) "Conclusions: Similar to AD, functional decline in PD correlates with multiple measures of cognitive impairment. Some differences between PD and AD may be explained by the influence of motor disability and declines in visuospatial function in PD."
Gender differences in Parkinson's disease. (Gend Med. 2007) "The incidence of PD is greater in men than in women. Gender differences in neurotoxicity have been observed, and basic research in experimental animals indicates that estrogen protects neurons from various forms of injury. However, the results of retrospective surveys of the neuroprotective effects of estrogen replacement in PD have been mixed, with some showing no effect on risk and others showing a reduction in risk. A mildly significant gender difference in disability and quality-of-life reporting has been noted, with women citing greater disability and reduced quality of life. Gender differences have been shown in response to treatment of PD, for example, in how levodopa is metabolized--women have greater levodopa bioavailability."
Hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, and risk of Parkinson disease. (Neurology. 2007) "CONCLUSIONS: Results of this large prospective study suggest that Parkinson disease risk is not significantly related to history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, or diabetes but may modestly decline with increasing blood cholesterol levels."
Impact of drooling in Parkinson's disease. (J Neurol. 2007)
Impact of psychiatric disorders on Parkinson's disease : A nationwide follow-up study from Sweden. (J Neurol. 2007) “CONCLUSIONS : A psychiatric disorder is an appreciable risk factor for the development of PD, particularly in people under age 50. The association between PD and psychiatric disorders should be taken into account by clinicians and health care providers.”
Inhibitory control and spatial working memory in Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007)
[Non-motor fluctuations in Parkinson's disease.] (Rev Neurol (Paris). 2007)
Orthostatic hypotension and attention in Parkinson's disease with and without dementia. (J Neural Transm. 2007) "We conclude that OH is frequent in PDD and should be addressed therapeutically since it may exacerbate attentional dysfunction."
Overestimation of stability limits leads to a high frequency of falls in patients with Parkinson's disease. (Clin Rehabil. 2007)
[Pathogenesis of Parkinson disease] (Nippon Ronen Igakkai Zasshi. 2007)
Prognostic factors for the progression of Parkinson's disease: A systematic review. (Mov Disord. 2007)
Radicular and nonradicular back pain in Parkinson's disease: A controlled study. (Mov Disord. 2007) "Postural abnormalities and increased muscle tone in Parkinson's disease (PD) may cause back pain. In this controlled study, we analyzed features of back pain in PD patients. The prevalence of back pain was 74% in PD patients (n = 101) when compared with 27% in control patients (n = 132; P < 0.0001, fisher's exact test), but did not correlate with disease severity or duration."
Restless legs syndrome in Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007)
Risk factors for somnolence, edema, and hallucinations in early Parkinson disease. (eurology. 2007)
[Salivary flow and swallowing in Parkinson's disease] (Ned Tijdschr Tandheelkd. 2006) " Parkinson's disease is a slowly progressive and irreversible disorder of the nervous system. Drooling is listed as a secondary symptom of Parkinson's disease. Its cause is insufficiently clear. In the literature 2 possible causes are described: hypersalivation and swallowing abnormalities."
Sleepwalking in patients with Parkinson disease. (Arch Neurol. 2007)
Smoking and cognitive function in Parkinson's disease. (Mov Disord. 2007) "These findings, nested in prospective cohort studies, suggest that cigarette smoking prior to disease onset is associated with worse cognitive function in PD."
Temporal relationship between cigarette smoking and risk of Parkinson disease (NEUROLOGY 2007)
Treatment with levodopa and risk for malignant melanoma. (Mov Disord. 2007) "We conclude that the increased rate of malignant melanoma observed in patients treated at hospital for Parkinson's disease is restricted to those with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, however, unrelated to the treatment with levodopa."
[Urinary symptoms and urodynamic findings in Parkinson's disease.] (Neurologia. 2007)
Vitamin D and Parkinson's disease-A hypothesis. (Mov Disord. 2007)
Voice abnormalities and their relation with motor dysfunction in Parkinson's disease. (Acta Neurol Scand. 2007)
Go to the top