Parkinson's Disease: Do You Have It?

What is Parkinson s Disease

  Can Parkinson's disease affect everybody, yes it can, even celebrities. Muhammad Ali, having been immediately recognized as one of the world’s greatest boxers, has also been distinguished as one of the most popular people with this Dementia disease. And in his case, he had started to present symptoms of the disease at a young age of 38. And yet, he had only been officially diagnosed with Parkinson's symptoms at the age of 42. It could also be noted that it is second only to Alzheimer’s disease in terms of occurrence. This may have definitely shocked you, and you couldn’t be blamed for it. This insane disease is certainly a scary disease.

  What is Parkinson's disease? This disease is a progressive, degenerative illness discovered by Dr. James Parkinson that involves a malfunction of what scientists have called the extrapyramidal system of the brain, which controls the body’s motor movement and coordination. This certain malfunction is caused by a deficiency of dopamine inside the brain. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that tries to keep out all the indirect stimulation of the direct pathway of brain signals responsible for motor movement. In short, if you happen to be short of this certain chemical, the signals that should have reached the motor center of the brain would be interrupted and overcome by other external signals. Hence, involuntary symptoms of this monstrous disease develop. This is most usually caused by the breakdown of a part of the midbrain known as the substantia nigra, which was known to produce dopamine. Many factors contribute to the cause of the disease, some of which include the induction of certain types of drugs like antipsychotics, trauma to the brain, and mutation of a gene. But the scariest cause of all that makes Parkinson's disease so notorious is that it is mostly idiopathic; it has no specific known cause.

  But certainly you have been guessing all this time. Do you have Parkinson’s disease? First of all, there are two categories that divide the symptoms of this mental disease: motor and neuropsychiatric symptoms. For motor symptoms, four cardinal signs have been noted: tremors, which involve involuntary shaking of the ends of one or more limbs; rigidity, which refers to the stiffness of appendage movement; bradykinesia, which involves the sluggishness of motion; and postural instability, which puts the victim in huge danger of falls. As for neuropsychiatric symptoms, these have all been varied from case to case. But the most usual symptom is the failure of executive function. What this means is that you will have a very difficult time to plan stuff completely, think abstractly or complexly, demonstrate goal-oriented behavior, and also exhibit slow cognitive processing. In most cases, the said symptoms could worsen, and would eventually lead to dementia and amnesia. If these symptoms of Parkinson's disease become evident to you, then it would be wise to consult your doctor in order to have you examined. Tests would most definitely include neurological examinations, and also painless brain scans to confirm the findings.

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