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Parkinson’s Associated Dementia

Decent Essays

The major component shared by both Parkinson’s disease and dementia is the functioning of neurons, with a then understandable association. Dementia is caused by neuron demise or diminished capacity of communication with other cells, while Parkinson’s disease, neurons in the basal ganglia experience deterioration that disrupts the normal neurotransmitter dopamine balance where neurons waste and die. With this shared neuron deterioration, the prevalence of dementia associated with Parkinson’s disease is clearly understood. One-third of all patients with Parkinson’s disease will display dementia (LeMone, Burke, & Bauldoff, 2011) with indicators identical to Alzheimer’s form of dementia.
James Parkinson first described the disease named after him as a motor dysfunction through an essay on “shaking palsy” in the early nineteenth century, with Friedrich Lewy a century later describing atypical masses of protein (now known as Lewy bodies) within cell cytoplasm’s in the brainstems of those displaying symptoms of Parkinson’s disease including those with dementia. Because of the distinct similarities, there has been professional discussion that Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson’s with dementia, and dementia with Lewy bodies be grouped as one: Lewy Body Disease (Auning, E., A., & Aarsland, D., 2012, p. 233). Dementia associated with Parkinson’s is frequent, with the occurrence assessed. Those with Parkinson’s disease with dementia represent 5% of all people who have dementia, and of

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