To my Sun City friends diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, I am sending this Valentine of love as I write my four-part series on your debilitating disease. For all of our residents, these articles will teach us lessons of courage and hope.
The first detailed description of the ailment was published in 1817 by English physician James Parkinson. Parkinson’s disease is a disorder that affects nerve cells in a part of the brain that controls voluntary muscle movement. More than the combined number of people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and Lou Gehrig’s disease, as many as one million Americans live with Parkinson’s disease, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Though thousands of cases go undetected, approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed yearly. Seven to possibly 10 million people throughout the world are living with the chronic malady.
Parkinson’s disease is seen mainly as an aging disorder beginning at around age 60, but four percent of its population are diagnosed before the age of 50. Men are more than one-and-a-half times more likely than women to develop the disease.
Having a PD patient in your family might increase your risk factor, as well as frequently being exposed to chemical toxins. Your chances of developing the disease is listed as 1 to 5 percent, depending on the source of the information.
Though there is no cure for PD at this time, extensive research continues to find ways to help restore quality of life for those afflicted. A variety of medicines sometimes help symptoms dramatically. According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, “the combined direct and indirect cost of Parkinson’s, including treatment, social security payments, and lost income from inability to work, is estimated to be nearly $25 billion per year in the United States alone. Medication costs for an individual person with PD average $2500 a year, and therapeutic surgery can cost up to $100,000 per patient.”
While the biological cause of developing PD is not fully understood, the medical community does agree on what causes the disease’s symptoms. The PD symptoms are the result of the brain’s inability to produce or utilize dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain that tells your muscles to move. The patient will not only have difficulty in initiating movement, but also will have trouble controlling muscles at rest.
No one knows what damages these cells, according to the website MedlinePlus. As with other neurological disorders, Parkinson’s disease does not shorten one’s lifespan unless other conditions are present.
Next Edition: Part 2: Diagnosis, motor symptoms, and non-motor symptoms
