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Case Study Parkinson's Disease

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1) Fill in the pertinent information with regard to Parkinson’s Disease:

Demographics (include any information on prevalence rates, age of onset, populations at risk): According to the text, Parkinson’s Disease is observed in 1% of the people over the age of 65. It seems safe to say that while this disease is a rare occurrence, people over the age of 65 are at a higher risk than other people.
Symptoms: Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease include but are not limited to: muscular rigidity, slowness of movement, a resting tremor, and posture instability.
Underlying neurobiology: According to the text, there is a near-disappearance of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons. Of the surviving dopaminergic neurons there are lewy-bodies present.
Genetic …show more content…

(A thought disorder – disorganized, irrational thinking are some of the most important symptoms of Schizophrenia).
Negative Symptoms: flattened emotional responses, poverty of speech, lack of initiative/persistence, the inability to experience pleasure (referred to as anhedonia), as well as social withdrawal.
Cognitive Symptoms: difficulty in holding attention, low psychomotor speech, learning and memory deficits, poor abstract thinking, and poor problem solving.
Underlying neurobiology (dopamine hypothesis, brain abnormalities, prefrontal cortex)
Negative and cognitive symptoms are seen within many neurological disorders. These disorders typically are related to some type of brain damage to the frontal lobes. Positive symptoms are slightly different, they seem to involve excessive activity in a few neural circuits that include dopamine as a neurotransmitter, while negative and cognitive symptoms seem to be caused by or related to degenerative or developmental processes, of which impair normal functions of some of the regions within the brain.
The dopamine hypothesis essentially claims that that the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia are due to over-activity of DA …show more content…

This is the fourth leading cause of disability. Bipolar disorder affects both men and women equally.
Description/Symptoms: Major affective disorders are mood disorders. There are two principle types of these disorders including, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder.
Bipolar disorder involves altering states of depression and mania. Bipolar episodes (mania) can last for varying amounts of time ranging from a few days to a few months. These episodes typically take a few weeks to run their course. The episodes of depression that follow the episodes of mania typically last for an extended period of time, ranging up to three times as long as the manic episode.
Some symptoms of depression usually result in people feeling unworthy, guilty, and are at a much higher risk for suicide. 15.9% of people with MDD and 29.2% of people with bipolar disorder attempt to commit suicide. This essentially declares suicidal thoughts as a potential symptom.
Depressed people, lack energy, talk and/or move slowly, may display signs of lethargy, or may frequently pace restlessly/aimlessly, increased crying, lack of appetite, lack of sexual appetite, and may suffer from irregular sleep cycles. Physical symptoms may include constipation, and less saliva

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