The Parkinson's Disease

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.

Parkinson disease is known as a progressive disorder that affects the nervous system. Some of the main symptoms of the disorder include tremor, muscular rigidity and slow imprecise movement. On the other hand Alzheimer 's disease is the most common cause of dementia. The disorder includes memory loss along with difficulties with thinking, problem-solving or language.

Rigidity can be very uncomfortable and even painful. Most people with Parkinson’s disease don’t walk with their arms swinging because of stiff and rigid muscles. The rigidity also causes the patient to have slow movement. Because muscles are so tight and can’t easily move, patients take a long time moving from step to step because of the associated pain. Another symptom that challenges Parkinson’s disease patients is slurred speech. People have a difficult time understanding what patients are saying. Parkinson’s disease can affect a person’s voice, causing them to speak softly or have difficulty forming sounds clearly. The third sign is Bradykinesia, which is one of the most significant problems for Parkinson disease patients. According to data from robot-assisted gait training, Bradykinesia causes everything the patient does to be slow. Bradykinesia is also expressed as micrographia (small handwriting), hypomimia (decreased facial expression), decreased blink rate, and hypophonia (soft speech). Bradykinesia causes difficulty with repetitive movements, such as finger

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 produces both motor symptoms and nonmotor symptoms. There are four cardinal motor symptoms of Parkinson’s: tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia (slow movements), and postural instability. Tremor is the most obvious symptom of Parkinson’s, as well as the most common. The tremor is uncontrollable and is most noticeable when the limb is at rest; when the limb is in use, the tremor disappears. Often times, the tremor only affects the hand or foot on one side of the body, but it can eventually become bilateral. Rigidity is characterized as stiffness and resistance to movement in the limbs. The arms, legs, face, and back are areas commonly affected. Early on, rigidity can cause joint pain, often in the shoulder. Bradykinesia is one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s. It is described as slowness and difficulty in initiating and making movements, especially repetitive movements and fine motor skills, such as writing. Bradykinesia greatly affects the ability of the Parkinson’s sufferer to perform common activities of daily life, like getting dressed. According to Nolden (2015), postural instability is the imbalance and loss of righting reflexes. This is usually a symptom that shows up in the late stages of Parkinson’s. Postural instability is linked with high rates of hip fractures in people with Parkinson’s disease, due to increased falls. Aside from the four cardinal motor symptoms, there are secondary motor symptoms that go

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a nervous system disorder that affects nearly five million people world wide. Most of the effects of PD are movement based. It is more prevalent in men and the chance of developing the disease increases with age. Fifteen percent of those with Parkinson’s have been identified as having a family history of the disease. Those who are 80 or older may be one-thousand times more likely to develop PD than those under 40 (Jankovic & Tolosa, 2015). The symptoms of PD were first described in 1817 by James Parkinson. Over time, Parkinson was able to observe the disease in six different patients, seeing the similarities in their symptoms. As sciences have advanced at a rapid rate, the understanding of PD has

Addressing the question of nature vs. nurture, Dr. Sonia Mathur states that “Genetics loads the gun, environment pulls the trigger” (Mathur).

Parkinson’s is a degenerative disorder, it affects the central nervous system, impairs motor skills, speech and can impair other parts of the nervous system. When a person has Parkinson's they can experience muscle rigidity, tremors, a change in postural stability, which can result in a difficulty to have balance, and slowing or loss of physical movement. You can also experience memory problems with the episodic memory (working memory), one of the problems are recalling already learned information. One of the causes to Parkinson’s is age, as you get older you are more likely to develop the disease. Development of Parkinson’s is related to decreased stimulation of the motor cortex, these neurons create dopamine and when they die off symptoms

disease” (Atchison & Dirette, 2012, p. 213). The disease is a complex hypokinetic type with

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 defined as “a progressive, chronic, neurodegenerative disease” (Medscape, 2014). Parkinson’s disease affects the movement of the body and develops gradually, starting from a slight tremor and can progress into loss of autonomic movements to speech changes and writing changes. In this paper the author will discuss ethical and legal concepts related to Parkinson’s disease and how certain treatments like stem cell transplants can help but also be a major risk factors and have ethical problems. Also the author will discuss the management of care for Parkinson’s disease and how to advocate for your patients, teach them how to deal with their ever changing body and lastly how developing research can help to find a cure or even a better treatment for this progressive neurological disease. Parkinson’s disease has no cure and it is important as a health care professional to understand the state of mind that your patient is in in order to provide the best quality of life so that they can live comfortably and happy as their disease progresses through their bodies.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by aberrant α-synuclein aggregates within neurons causing damage or neuronal death in different regions of the brain with most disease development occurring in the substantia nigra (NIH.PARK). α-synuclein positive Lewy bodies are another hallmark of PD development (NIH.PARK). Damage or death of neurons leads to a decrease in dopamine production which is required for smooth control of muscle movement (NIH.PARK2, NIH.PARK). Clinically presenting symptoms manifest over time and are characterized by muscle rigidity, tremors and delayed movement however, cognitive changes have also been observed (NIH.PARK2, NIH.PARK). Almost all cases of PD develop sporadically with a small

Parkinson’s disease is one of the few diseases that have been around since ancient times. In the ancient Indian medical system of Ayurveda this disease was referred to as Kampavata. In AD 175 the physician, Galen of the western medical literature referred Parkinson’s disease as “shaking palsy”. It was not until 1817 that a detailed medical essay was published on the subject by London doctor, James Parkinson. The publication was titled “An Essay on the Shaking Palsy”. This officially established Parkinson’s disease as a medical condition. The essay was based on six cases he observed in his own practice and on walks around his neighborhood. The essay was to encourage people to study deeper into the disease. Over the years the study of Parkinson’s

Wong, Gilmour and Ramage-Morin (2014) states that Parkinson’s disease comes second on the list of most common degenerative disorder of the nervous system. Dopamine, a substance synthesized in the body, is responsible for the normal movements of the body (Wong, Gilmour and Ramage-Morin, 2014). In Parkinson’s disease, the cells responsible for synthesizing Dopamine are damaged and incapacitated to form it (Wong, Gilmour and Ramage-Morin, 2014). The lower levels of Dopamine result in muscle tremors, sluggish muscle movements, rigidity, impaired reflexes and loss of equilibrium (Wong, Gilmour and Ramage-Morin, 2014). Patient may experience various other

Dystonia is a neurological disorder that affects an individual’s movement. Greek for “altered muscle tone,” dystonia causes one’s muscles to involuntarily contract (Moberg-Wolff, Barna, & Thiyagarajah, 2014). Multiple types of the disorder are classified based on the location of the movement dysfunction. It is a possibility that a person can experience multiple types of dystonia simultaneously (“Dystonias Fact Sheet;” Phukan, Albanese, Gasser, & Warner, 2011). Dystonia does not have much specificity in its presentation or cause and can appear at anytime during the lifespan (Geyer & Bressman, 2006). To be diagnosed, a series of assessments must be conducted including blood tests, urine tests, MRI and CT scans, as well as EMG tests to measure