The exact cause of Parkinson’s disease isn’t known and it is a disease which gradually gets worse over time and affects thousands of people throughout the world. It is a disease which affects people of all races, gender and age, though it is more prevalent in those over the age of 65. It is a particularly debilitating disease with symptoms that affect the movement, gait, posture and speech in the sufferer.

What is Parkinson’s disease?

Parkinson’s disease is the degeneration of an area deep in the brain called the basal ganglia, or to be more precise the substantia nigra. This area in the brain contains black pigmented cells which in a normal human being produce chemical transmitters, of which the most important is dopamine. These transmitters are chemical which pass on messages from one cell to the other, they either stimulate or inhabit as necessary.

When someone suffers from Parkinson’s disease the cells in the basal ganglia produce less dopamine and with dopamine being needed to transmit the messages to parts of the brain, spinal chord, muscles and nerves, symptoms of the disease show as rigidity and slowness of movement.

There is normally a balance between dopamine and another transmitter which is called acetylcholine, this is usually present in many areas of the brain and plays an important part in memory and recall.

In someone who has Parkinson’s dopamine is depleted and there is an excess of acetylcholine, this is why two of the most common types of medication used in the treatment of Parkinson’s is dopamine in the form of Levodopa and drugs which help to restore the balance of acetylcholine called anticholinergic in the form of benzhexol.

Ageing and heredity

Parkinson’s disease is by no means caused by the process of ageing that has an affect on everyone’s brain to some extent; however the incidence of contracting the disease as we get older does increase. Research is currently underway in determining the heredity factor associated with Parkinson’s disease, with a very weak link being found to associate Parkinson’s with Alzheimer’s disease.

Important points about Parkinson’s disease

• The exact cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown at the present time.
• It is the reduction in the chemical dopamine that causes the symptoms of Parkinson’s such as tremor, rigidity and gait.
• While Parkinson’s cannot be cured the symptoms can be greatly helped with the use of medication such as Levodopa which replenishes the dopamine levels lost in the brain.

Parkinson’s disease is a debilitating, progressive illness which affects a person’s movement; various parts of the body can be affected and symptoms are stiffness in the muscles, difficulty when starting to move and slowness and tremor in the hands when they are at rest. The disease was named after Dr James Parkinson who first diagnosed the disease around the 1800`s.

Why does Parkinson’s disease happen?

The basal ganglia, a part of the brain is affected by the disease, it is a part which plays a vital role in how we control our movement. Cells in the substantia nigra, which is a part of the ganglia produce what is know as dopamine, when someone is affected by Parkinson’s the dopamine producing cells are lost and this then causes a shortage of dopamine in the brain. As for the reason these cells are lost not much is known on exactly why this happens.

The basal ganglia in our brain stores and helps to adjust voluntary movement, it works alongside another chemical messenger which is called acetylcholine, with dopamine playing a crucial role in the steering mechanism which helps the ganglia to put programs of movement together.

The level of dopamine in someone who has Parkinson’s will fall to about 80% and when this happens this steering mechanism in the brain will fail. The body’s internal communication system will then go awry and messages delivered from the brain to parts of the body are interrupted or slowed down and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease then begin to show.

Exactly which parts of the body and how greatly they are affected will differ from person to person although the symptoms of the disease will always get progressively worse as the disease develops over a period of time; this however will usually happen very slowly. Great strides have been made in the treatment of the disease and there is a lot that can be done to alleviate and ward off the symptoms.

How common is Parkinson’s disease?

Parkinson’s disease occurs anywhere in the world though as the disease chiefly affects older people it is more prevalent in developed countries. It is thought that over 700,000 people worldwide do suffer from the disease with over 50,000 new cases being reported every year. Statistics show that roughly 1 in every 100 people who are over the age of 65 will go on to develop Parkinson’s disease.

What are the common signs of the disease?

There are four major diagnostic symptoms of the disease, these are:

• Tremor or shaking particularly when the limbs are at rest.
• Rigidity or stiffness of the joints which can sometimes be very painful.
• Bradykinesia or slowness of movement.
• Postural instability.