Parkinson's Disease Essay

Parkinson’s disease is the most common neurological disorder. Two centuries ago, James Parkinson was the first to describe the disease in details. He published a monograph, “An essay on the shaking palsy,” describing a neurological illness consisting of resting tremor and an odd form of progressive motor disability, now known as Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease is associated with many challenges and complexities. This paper will explain the diagnosis, causes and risk factors, and treatments of the disease and how Parkinson’s disease affects people’s behavior. To obtain a valid diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, some motor features and non-motor features should be examined. The motor features of Parkinson’s disease is characterized by

At first, the biological mark of Parkinson’s disease is the loss in dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNpc). The death of the neurons is the result from the deficiency of dopamine neurotransmitter within the basal ganglia, which are linked to the thalamus in the base of the brain and involved in the coordination of movement. One factor that may cause the loss of those neurons is ageing, sixty yaers of age and older. According to Ali Samii et al, “ageing is associated with a decline of pigmented neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta” (1786). So, ageing is a great agent that increases the risk of having Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s disease can also be genetically inherited. Mutations in genes are associated with the increased risk of having the disease with a family history of Parkinson’s disease or tremor. For example, a misfolding in the protein α-synuclein causes a mutation in its gene, the first genetic mutation associated with inherited Parkinson’s disease. Furthermore, Parkinson’s disease can be due to environmental exposure. Substances in the environment, such as pesticide exposure, living in the rural areas, drinking well water, are linked to the increased risk of having Parkinson’s disease. Interestingly, some other environmental factors are found to reduce the risk of having the disease, such as smoking tobacco, drinking coffee, using non-steroidal

It is done just to slow the disease progression, provide symptomatic relief of motor and non-motor symptoms, and prevent motor fluctuations and dyskinesia. Ali Samii et al assert, “Vitamin E, selegiline, and coenzyme Q10 have been studied as potential neuroprotective agents to slow down disease progression” (1788). These agents work at the early stages of the disease and can relief the effect of motor symptoms too. Dopamine agonist and levodopa are also drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease to maintain stable dopamine concentrations. With the younger and healthier patients, treatment starts with dopamine agonist because it is rarely cause dyskinesia, and it is sufficient to control parkinsonian symptoms for the first couple of years. With older people, levodopa is the initial step of the treatment instead of dopamine agonist because, as Kalia and Lang assert, “Dopamine agonist are more commonly associated with hallucinations and are therefore usually not prescribed for elderly patients, especially those with cognitive impairment” (906). However, levodopa comes with motor complications over a long-term of use, dyskinesia, motor fluctuation, and night-time awakenings, because of the short half-life of levodopa. So, dopamine agonist is used with levodopa to enhance the effectiveness of levodopa and to reduce off time.