Parkinson’s disease is a long term disease where the patient needs to take medicines on a regular basis for relief of the symptoms> It is important for both the Parkinson’s patient and care givers to realize that these medicines might have various types of interactions with other drugs. Some of these drug interactions can be quite severe, therefore additional medicines should be taken only after consulting a doctor.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disease of the brain where there is decreased production of the chemical transmitter known as dopamine. The classical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia (slowing of movement) and loss of postural reflexes. Drugs are the mainstay of treatment in Parkinson’s disease and while there is no definite cure, drug therapy is used to help control the symptoms.
When medication has ceased to be effective or the side effects from them have become no longer tolerable, surgery might be an option your Doctor will consider and advise to help alleviate your symptoms and improve your quality of life. However not all sufferers of Parkinson’s will be a candidate for surgery, an example would be a person who didn’t respond very well to Levodopa treatment.
Of all the people suffering from this disease it is thought that only around 10% of them could be classed as possible suitable candidates for surgery. Another factor to consider when thinking of surgery is that while improvements could be gained there is also the risk factor to take into account that surgery of any kind has. (more…)
When medication has ceased to be effective or the side effects from them have become no longer tolerable, surgery might be an option your Doctor will consider and advise to help alleviate your symptoms and improve your quality of life. However not all sufferers of Parkinson’s will be a candidate for surgery, an example would be a person who didn’t respond very well to Levodopa treatment.