We have all heard the name “Parkinson’s Disease”, but “Is there a cure for Parkinson’s Disease”? Over last 60+ years, the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease has dramatically changed which has led to great improvement in quality of life to millions of people across the world. The therapies have evolved from no medications to electric shocks to current state of the art medicine, injections, surgeries and finally leading to personalized medicines. Let’s peek into this current state of understanding of Parkinson’s Disease.
Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder leading to various neurological symptoms. The commonest and well recognized symptom is “Tremors”. However, Parkinson’s disease has various “Motor Symptoms” which affect normal body movements and “Non-Motor symptoms” which affect various other body organs.
The classical motor symptoms which are easily recognized by people include Tremors, Stiffness of muscles, slowness in daily activities and walking changes. These symptoms are well recognized and easily appreciated by one and all. The figure “Tree of Enlightment of Parkinson’s Disease” shows these prominent symptoms and also various other non-motor symptoms which are not easily seen by people. These non-motor symptoms include, mood changes, loss of smell, sleep issues (vivid dreams, dream enaction’s, disturbed sleep), constipation, sexual dysfunction etc. There has been consistent effort year on year to create awareness about all these symptoms for lay public and reduce the myths associated with Parkinson’s disease. To create an awareness about Parkinson’s Disease, April 11th of every year is marked as “World Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Day” to commemorate the birth day of Dr. James Parkinson. James Parkinson had described in detail about this disorder in 1817, leading to be recognized by his name – “Parkinson’s Disease”
Treatment
Unlike many other medical disorders, Parkinson’s Disease has good treatment options. Exercises and happy lifestyle remains a pivotal in management of Parkinson’s. In initial phases, good exercises and oral medications like levodopa, dopamine agonists suffice. As time passes by, the requirement to have more steady phase therapies are required and, in this phase, continuous dopaminergic stimulation therapies are the major stay. These include Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) therapy, Apomorphine pump therapy, Levodopa Carbidopa Intestinal gel infusion therapy. Most of these therapies are available in India.
The pursuit of cure for Parkinson’s have led to various major scientific concept changes for management of the disorders. Currently Parkinson’s management is slowly moving away from generic concept of treating everyone with same medications / dosages to personalized care. With the current understanding of genetics, scientists can understand, why certain set of people respond different as against others OR why certain people have rapid progression of symptoms vs those with slower progression. This is helping in choosing right medications to right people. In addition, currently trials on specific gene modification therapies are also being carried out (e.g LRRK2 mutation and GBA mutation carrying patients). This has led globally to catalog the genetic mutations in various populations including India. These are the major stepping stones for possible ‘elixir’ in management of Parkinson’s Disease. Hopingly in coming decades we move from symptomatic therapies to curative therapies for People with Parkinson’s Disease.
On this occasion of World Parkinson’s disease day, lets create more awareness about the disorder and help in improving the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s Disease. A group of specialists have come together to create awareness about the disease through ww.movementdisordersclinic.com. Information on various other movement disorders are also available here. Patients in need can get the help they need from the best experts available.
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