Parkinson's Disease Research Paper

Parkinson's Disease has caused problems for many people in this world and plagued the elderly all over the world.Parkinson's disease still puzzles doctors and the causes are unknown. It is known that it is a non-communicable disease and may even be hereditary. Parkinson's disease is thought to be caused by external factors.

Identified as LRRK2, this gene mutation only accounts for one to two percent of all cases of Parkinson’s disease. (Michael J. Fox Foundation)

Parkinson disease (PD), also referred to as Parkinson’s disease and paralysis agitans, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that is the third most common neurologic disorder of older adults. It is a debilitating disease affecting motor ability and is characterized by four cardinal symptoms: tremor rigidity, bradykinesia or kinesis (slow movement/no movement), and postural instability. Most people have primary, or idiopathic, disease. A few patients have secondary parkinsonian symptoms from conditions such as brain tumors and certain anti-psychotic drugs.

Parkinson’s disease “is described as a common disorder of the brain caused by a progressive deterioration of the areas that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine” (Fischer, 1999). It affects the nervous system, more specifically it affects the nerve cells in your brain that secrete dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical that is responsible for the movement and coordination of the musculoskeletal system.

At the same time, Parkinson’s is still quite sporadic in nature. Should there be a familial relation however, mutations in specific genes have been conclusively shown to cause Parkinson’s disease. Familial cases of Parkinson disease can be caused by mutations in the LRRK2, PARK2, PARK7, PINK1, or SNCA gene, or by alterations in genes that have not been identified. In most cases, people with these mutations will develop Parkinson’s

Parkinson’s disease is a disorder that progresses over time. It affects your movement through your nervous system; the disorder causes stiffness, and slow movement in your body. Most noticeably started in little “tremors” in your hands it gradually increases over time. Early stages consists little expression in your face or no movement in your arms as you walk. Your speech may also slur, or slow down. Symptoms usually worsen over time.

Parkinson Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease symptomized by tremor, muscular rigidity, and slow imprecise movements. Typically, the disease affects middle-aged and elderly individuals. PD is associated with degeneration of the basal ganglia of the brain causing a deficiency of the neurotransmission of dopamine.

It is very much the same for a body without dopamine. Early symptoms are slight shaking or tremors in the fingers, hand, lower face, and leg. Also a person’s handwriting can suddenly decrease in size, the letters are smaller and the words are crowded together. Oftentimes people experience a moment of freezing once they stand before being able to move forward, or stiffness in the shoulders and hips. Over time all of these symptoms escalate as the level of dopamine drops and the instructions the brain receives becomes more fragmented. What was once a slight tremor has now spread up the entire arm and may occur when the arm is at rest. Movements become increasingly slower as the muscles start to freeze randomly, this is called bradykinesia. Sometime even the face can freeze causing a person to have a mask like expression; this is referred to as akinesia. The constant tremors, shuffling gait, and stooped posture represent only the motor symptoms; patients also suffer from weight loss, depression, loss of smell and taste, low blood pressure as well as digestion

It has been researched that it can be heredity, and can have an influence on whether or not, a person will end up with Parkinson's. It is noted that having a close family member with the disease will increase your chances but only a relatively small amount. However, if multiple close relatives have succumbed to the disease, it greatly increases the chances of you getting Parkinson’s as some point in life (Mayo Clinic Staff). It shows a pattern that men are more likely to have this disease than women. Another pattern Parkinson’s seems to show, is that it is common for those in Agriculture. This is because being a farmer specifically, you may be, or are often, around pesticides or herbicides which these directly inhibit dopamine production, which if we remember is the reason for Parkinson’s.(Parkinson’s Disease n.d.) The picture on this page shows a great example, how famers are sometimes not careful and do not take the proper precautions to protect themselves. Yes he is wearing gloves, but he should probably be wearing a mask as not to inhale the

Parkinson’s Disease is a long-term progressive neurodegenerative disease consisting of motor system impairment, neuropsychiatric, and nonmotor features. The disease is characterized by the following key clinical features: bradykinesia, resting tremor, postural instability, and rigidity. These symptoms are due to the diminishing of dopamine in the nigrostriatal pathway and substantia nigra, which causes inhibition of the thalamus decreasing excitatory input to the motor cortex.1 Along with the key manifestations an individual with Parkinson’s Disease will experience problems associated with the disease or the antiparkinson medications. These co-occurring problems are hallucinations, dementia, daytime sleepiness, fatigue, depression, and pyschosis.2 Psychosis is a common problem in Parkinson’s Disease, and is characterized by paranoid delusions and hallucinations that are visual in nature.2 Risk factors for psychosis consists of advancing age, dementia, sleep disorders, and high doses of antiparkinson drugs.1

The explanation of the processes in the nervous system, which lead to the distressing results of a completely changed lifestyle as well as behavior, is important for understanding the origins of the disease. For all movements/actions the body performs, the brain gathers information about the body position which comes together in the striatum. The striatum, in cooperation with the substantia nigra and other parts of the brain, sends out commands for balance and coordination. The substantia nigra produces dopamine, the neurotransmitter which is crucial to human movement and controlling of balance. In Parkinson's disease, there is a dying off of the nerve cells producing dopamine in the substantia nigra, resulting in a large loss of dopamine in the brain, which causes a disbalance in the dopamine/acetylcholine cooperation. (6)The effects are a lack of coordination of movements, manifesting through tremor, stiff muscles, difficult moving.

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,

Parkinson’s Disease is a very common disorder these days. Over 10 million people live daily with Parkinson worldwide. Parkinson’s Disease was named after an English surgeon James Parkinson who wrote a detailed description essay called Shaking Palsy in 1817. The average age for Parkinson’s Disease is between 45 to 70 years old but you can also have juvenile or young onset as well. Most common symptoms of Parkinson are tremors, bradykinesia or akinesia, or rigidity or stiffness, and balance disorder. Parkinson’s Disease doesn’t have a cure and the cause is unknown it could be a number of things genetics, environmental triggers, age, or gender. Parkinson’s Disease happens because the dopaminergic neuron dies and

The cells are dopamine producing cells. The loss of dopamine inside the brain is what causes an individual to have this disease. Although much research has been done on this disease, it is still unclear even today as to why these dopamine producing cells disappear. Also, over many years of research, scientist and doctors have come to the conclusion that Parkinson’s disease is caused by a combination of genetics and one’s own environment. Because people are unique and individualist the symptoms and factors will play a different role in each person. Although many times, people are very similar in their environments as well as their genetics, one person may have Parkinson’s and another person may not have any symptoms or signs of Parkinson’s

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,