Health Advice An answer to your medical questions » Parkinsons Disease

Parkinsons Disease Exercise

Kevin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:59:51 +0000

Parkinson’s disease is a neuro degenerative disorder that produces debilitating symptoms like muscle stiffness and rigidity,
muscle atrophy, shaking and trembling of the hands and limbs, difficulty in walking or walking with a gait, presenting a stooping posture, body flexion, extreme difficulty in swallowing or communicating or putting words to thoughts, difficulty in articulating, difficulty in maintaining posture and balance, walking in a strange manner, limping etc.

In the later stages of the Parkinson’s disease, the patient can hardly walk unless there are others to support him; he becomes bound to the wheelchair or gets confined to the bed. Slowly but surely, all the muscles get atrophied, and the patient gradually slips into a vegetative state.

Parkinson’s disease cannot be cured, as has been pointed out many times earlier. But the symptoms may be alleviated to a certain extent through Parkinson’s disease exercise which can prevent muscular atrophy and keep the hands and limbs exercised and in working condition for as long as possible.

Beneficial and helpful Parkinson’s disease exercise – yoga
Yoga therapy is the best exercise for healing a body suffering from Parkinson’s and this has been certified by western doctors and Parkinson’s researchers as well. An hour or two of yoga practice is essential for yielding visible results. Some of the components of the yoga practice sessions are meditation, breathing practices, shoulder movements, strengthening postures etc. Along with this there is speech therapy.

In fact there are various kinds of yogic postures and other normal exercise forms strewn all over the internet which you can look up for more in depth help.
Apart from these, regular dancing, be it classical dance or Latin or Spanish dance or vigorous country/folk dance, martial arts forms like aikido tai chi etc can help to improve body balance, muscle mobility, coordination and flexibility and minimize muscle cramps.

The ancient Chinese discipline of acupuncture where needles are planted into the pressure points of the body can help relieve joint and muscular pain, lull the patient into sleep and prevent muscles from becoming shapeless and powerless and dead.

Parkinson’s patients are also advised to go in for regular physical therapy or physiotherapy to keep their body in working order. Another Ayurvedic indirect exercise that can yield results is Ayurvedic massage of a special type and yogic massage as well, that is exclusively meant for exercising the body of patients suffering from debilitating diseases like Parkinson’s Disease.

Parkinsons Disease Foundation

Kevin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:58:20 +0000

Parkinson’s disease named after Dr. James Parkinson of London (1817) happens to be a neuro degenerative illness or disorder that causes muscular atrophy, muscle stiffness

and rigidity, joint pain, shaking and trembling of limbs, difficulty in speaking properly or uttering a sound, difficulty in walking, walking in a strange manner with a gait or a limp, difficulty in swallowing, difficulty in articulating etc.

When the patient reaches stage 5 of Parkinson’s disease, he is as good as brain dead for he can’t walk without support, is confined and bound to the bed and wheelchair and in this vegetative condition which is extremely painful to watch for the patient’s near and dear ones, the patient can survive for several months. But there is no cure for this disease. Often the patient slips into deep depression and so does the family members who have to tend to him.

But as a Parkinson’s sufferer once wrote that the illness itself is very limited because it does not have the power to destroy peace or corrode faith or shatter hope or cripple love or kill friendship or steal eternal life or invade the soul or silence courage or suppress memories or conquer the spirit.

The Parkinson’s disease Foundation scattered all across the world and giving affiliations to various domestic and international chapters happens to be a registered charitable trust. Educating the general public about the different aspects of PD and serving the diverse needs of Parkinson’s patients, and providing emotional support to the families of Parkinson’s patients (since they get mentally scarred and broken) are the objectives of Parkinson’s disease Foundation.

The Parkinson’s disease foundation or PDF for short tries to spread hope through advocacy, education and research and they work for almost 1 million American sufferers of Parkinson’s. Their function or goal is to continue with cutting edge research so as to identify the exact causes and all the causes that lead to the onset of this disease, and to find out a cure for this disorder as quickly as possible to save millions of people from trauma.

There are also support services and educational programs in place which can provide strong shoulders to as well as support for patients, caregivers and the family members of the patients. They also arrange seminars and conferences and publish newsletters.

Parkinsons Disease Symptoms

Kevin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:18:28 +0000

In individuals who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, it has been medically observed that the neurons or brain cells progressively and gradually start to deteriorate because of injury
followed by select cells recording a degeneration or decadence and ultimately these select degenerating cells die out. It is because of this progressive degeneration of brain cells or neurons that the characteristic symptoms or typical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease start to manifest. Following is a description of Parkinson’s disease symptoms.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms
Individuals suffering from Parkinson’s disease find it tough to maintain their balance, involuntarily and without knowing they start to tremble, the muscles get atrophied or stiff and rigid and spontaneous rapid movements are no longer possible or the ability is wholly lost. There is a strange pattern in their walk which can be recognized easily because the walk is characterized by a gait and the body is flexed or bent.

With the acronym TRAP you will find it easier to remember the Parkinson’s disease symptoms. T stands for tremor or trembling limbs, R stands for rigidity or muscular stiffness, A denotes Akinesia or extreme difficulty in the initiation of movement or extremely slow movement and finding it difficult to keep up that movement. Postural instability is denoted by P where the walking is characterized by gait and the body gets flexed or bent.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms in the early phase
Medical research has shown that there are extremely subtle signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease present in the afflicted individual which haven’t been noticed before and quite a long time after that the patient witnesses visible tremors or trembling.

Some of the early symptoms and signs of this disease are resting tremor, an extremely subjective sensation of trembling that is taking place internally, the voice will become soft, a sensation of discomfort or aching or tingling or numbness in the limbs or neck, dragging a leg along while walking or limping, painful frozen shoulder, a stooping posture or flexion of the body, while walking, failing to swing an arm and a strange change in the expression on the face characterized by lack of blinking or staring. There will also be difficulty in swallowing

Parkinsons Disease Treatments

Kevin — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:17:16 +0000

First and foremost let me make it very clear that modern science cannot yet cure Parkinson’s disease, but there are various Parkinson’s disease treatments available which can help to alleviate the symptoms.

Some medications for Parkinson’s include Levodopa – the best of the lot, dopa decarboxylase inhibitor group, dopamine agonists, carbidopa, selegiline, COMT inhibitors, anticholigernics, amantadine etc. If everything else fails to work then surgery may be a last option although surgery for Parkinson’s is rare and includes deep brain stimulation, pallidotomy and thalmotomy.
Alternatives for Parkinson’s disease treatments.

Many people are turning to Ayurveda to help alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Ayurveda recommends the intake of certain herbs, practicing of exercise, yoga to keep the muscles and limbs in working order, harps on the importance of meditation and different types of Ayurvedic massages like shirodhara or abhyangam and switching over to a new diet. A herb that you can consume if you have Parkinson’s is Mucuna puriens that contains high doses of Levodopa.

Broad bean therapy is another emerging alternative for Parkinson’s disease treatment. Broad beans are rich sources of Levodopa and provide the raw materials, as researchers in Australia have found out. So the bottom line is that Parkinson’s patients should consume whole broad beans to stock up the body on Levodopa.

Since depression sets in almost always in Parkinson’s patients, serotonin stimulating products have to be consumed like Saint John’s Wort herb or maybe chocolates that can make you feel good. Another alternative treatment gaining ground is a 1000 mg plus vitamin co enzyme Q 10 to be taken daily which may fight the disease.

The ancient Chinese practice of acupuncture can help drive away the muscular and joint pain, induce sleep and prevent the muscles from becoming powerless and shapeless. To improve muscle mobility, body balance and flexibility, patients can take to yoga, dance and aikido tai chi.

Since Parkinson’s disease has a direct correlation with vitamin D deficiency (investigation is still going on to establish concrete link and to find out a possible cure), it makes sense if you increase your consumption of vitamin D and sun yourself regularly for sometime everyday.

Vitamin D Parkinsons Disease

Kevin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 20:09:42 +0000

According to various ongoing and past medical researches, there is a significant correlation between Parkinson’s disease and vitamin D insufficiency.

In fact, Parkinson’s disease is often tied to lower levels of vitamin D in the blood. Archives of Neurology will vouch for the veracity of this statement.
Researchers employed by Archives of Neurology decided to conduct a comparative study of 100 healthy adults, 100 patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and 100 patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease, keeping a check that all these 300 patients are of the same age.

Blood samples were taken from each and cultured and the results showed that 36% of the adults who were healthy suffered from a vitamin D insufficiency, in the Alzheimer’s disease patients, the figures rose up to 41% while the Parkinson’s patients showed the highest level of vitamin D insufficiency, peaking at 55%.

There is a subtle difference between vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency of the same. In case of the latter, the vitamin D levels are lower than that found in individuals suffering from insufficiency of vitamin D.

The study revealed that even in case of vitamin D deficiency, the Parkinson’s patients registered the highest percentage – 23% as opposed to 10% of healthy adults and 16% of Alzheimer’s patients. Here factors like gender or age or APOE gene mutation’s presence or absence (in case of Alzheimer’s) do not matter.

Is there really a correlation between vitamin D and Parkinson’s disease?
A beneficial, benign addition to an individual’s health system is what vitamin D is supposed to be, according to scientists and medical researchers. The substantia nigra embedded deep within the brain is the area which is most vulnerable to attack by Parkinson’s disease and when 80% of the neurons in the substantia nigra die out, the symptoms and signs of Parkinson’s disease become visible outwardly.

You would be surprised to know that there are high levels of receptors of vitamin D within that substantia nigra , which in short means vitamin D is required if the substantia nigra is to function at the optimal level. On the basis of this hypothesis, various kinds of research were carried out by different schools of medics and the common conclusion was there is a definite correlation existing between Parkinson’s disease and deficiency of vitamin D.

Parkinsons Disease Cure

Kevin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:50:02 +0000

The neuro degenerative disorder of Parkinson’s disease has always been in the limelight because of celebrities like Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali, who were diagnosed with this severely debilitating disease.

Compared to other brain related diseases, awareness about Parkinson’s disease is rather high but unfortunately, what many people don’t know is that Parkinson’s disease cannot yet be cured in the medical sense of the term.

Of course there are palliative measures which when taken can retard the process of degeneration of brain cells or neurons. Although it can not be cured, patients can take recourse to physical therapy which will prevent muscular atrophy. To keep up the immunity levels of the body, the patients should also consume vitamins.

Medical research is going on at full pace and scientists are bending themselves backward to come out with a good cure for Parkinson’s disease. Gene therapy is one area which is receiving particular attention from scientists because there is hope in this line. Parkinson’s may be treated if new genes can substitute faulty genes.

Other types of Parkinson’s disease cure that is popular is alternative healing. The ancient Indian practice of Ayurveda can be of much help to Parkinson’s sufferers. Under this system you have to consume herbal concoctions, meditate everyday, surrender yourself to special types of massages, and exercise the different limbs and parts and muscles of your body to prevent them from getting atrophied and switch over to a new diet. The herbs have been found to trigger off production of dopamine.

Several medical researches and studies have found a concrete link between Parkinson’s disease and deficiency of vitamin D. Of course, doctors and researchers are not yet sure whether low vitamin D intake causes Parkinson’s disease or whether Parkinson’s disease itself depletes the stock of vitamin D in the substantia nigra!

But there is no harm, if you sun yourself at times, to get your daily quota of vitamin D in abundance and who knows, it might prevent or reduce the risk of Parkinson’s Disease at old age, though there is no medical evidence to support this piece of hypothesis!

Final Stages of Parkinsons Disease

Kevin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:31:52 +0000

Parkinson’s disease can be divided into 5 stages and the last stage or the fifth stage is the most painful to watch.

In these final stages of Parkinson’s disease, the doctor will prescribe Levodopa for the patient, the effect of which can be made to last longer with the help of COMT inhibitor. Another curative option is pallidotomy surgery which can destroy a few of the neurons or brain cells, stop tremors and minimize the rigidity and muscular stiffness. One more option is deep brain stimulation.

What are the debilitating symptoms in the final stages of Parkinson’s disease?
When a patient reaches the final stages of Parkinson’s disease, the symptoms get more and more debilitating and the patient’s mobility will become thoroughly limited, he will be bound for the rest of his days to the wheelchair and confined to bed, swallowing food or water will become an insurmountable difficulty and speech will be almost non existent.

At times those unfortunate family members who have to take care of their relative suffering from the last stages of Parkinson’s disease find it painful to watch the struggling efforts of the PD patient to communicate and articulate his thoughts into coherent words. Many patients, not being able to carry on with this difficulty of speech just give up trying to communicate altogether. At times, to an outsider it might seem as if the patient has forgotten to speak or forgotten the question asked in his struggles to bring words to his lips.

At times of Parkinson’s disease or rather in most cases deep depression sets in. Health will fail rapidly. The patient will start losing weight alarmingly because neither will he be able to eat well nor will he have the desire to sustain himself through food. The patient is often put on a feeding tube, perhaps permanently and in this vegetative condition, he can go on to survive for months. He can derive nutrition from powdered supplements like polycose mixed with water, frozen Boost or Ensure which will take care of whatever nutrition he requires.

One option can be palliative care. At the final stage of Parkinson’s disease, if the patient’s heart has stopped, the patient won’t be resuscitated.

Causes of Parkinsons Disease

Kevin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 18:57:39 +0000

In this article I shall discuss the causes of Parkinson’s disease to help you have a better understanding of this medical condition.

Very deep inside the brain, there is a tiny area known as substantia nigra. In Parkinson’s disease, select cells of the brain or neurons begin to show a progressive degeneration and start deteriorating and slowly die out. When around 80% of the neurons in the substantia nigra die out, the symptoms and signs of the Parkinson’s disease start becoming visible.

If you put the substantia nigra under the microscope, it will be witnessed that the numbers of brain cells in the substantia nigra are significantly lower when compared with that of healthy brains and there will often be signs of abnormality in the remaining cells that haven’t yet died out.

The substantia nigra start deteriorating, degenerating and then start to die out after a specific neurotransmitter is produced. This leads to loss of dopamine and messages which ought to be relayed by dopamine cannot reach the targeted motor centers. This phenomenon causes the appearance of motor symptoms, primarily, in Parkinson’s disease.

Medical research has so far unearthed the causes of neurochemical disturbances behind the occurrence of Parkinson’s symptoms and this is something that can be understood. But as far as neurodegeneration of cells is concerned, the underlying cause hasn’t yet been identified.

Risk factors of Parkinson’s disease
There is some evidence to suggest that some people might be genetically predisposed towards Parkinson’s disease. Doctors and researchers have often noticed a strong inheritance pattern in the case of Parkinson’s disease all over the world though the numbers of such hereditary cases are few and far between. In such cases the triggers are exposure to environmental toxin, other kinds of illness, trauma etc and its onset is gradual.

Usually it has been observed that Parkinson’s disease mostly occurs in old age or middle age or towards the fag end of life. So old age or increasing age may be put down as another risk factor of Parkinson’s disease. You would be surprised to know that even some kind of drugs like haloperidol and chlorpromazine can cause Parkinson’s and such a disease is commonly referred to as drug induced Parkinsonism.

Parkinsons Disease advice

Kevin — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:32:28 +0000

Parkinson’s disease belonging to the neuro degenerative genre of illness has derived its name from Dr. James Parkinson (1817) and some of the celebrities who are afflicted by PD are Michael J. Fox and boxer Muhammad Ali who have brought this disease to the limelight.

There is a deeply embedded small area/corner in the brain called substantia nigra.

The neurons or brain cells in this substantia nigra get attacked by Parkinson’s disease and start degenerating or deteriorating. With this progressive degeneration of the neurons, some cells start dying out and when 80% of the neurons have been attacked or destroyed in this manner, the visible signs and symptoms of the disease start manifesting externally.

Dopamine levels are hit badly when these cells die out. Through various kinds of medical researches it has been found out that Parkinson’s disease is directly related to deficiency or insufficiency of vitamin D though it is not clear as yet, as to whether Parkinson’s depletes and destroys the vitamin D receptors in the substantia nigra or low levels of vitamin D in the blood leads to Parkinson’s disease.

Whichever might be the case, it won’t harm you if you sun yourself daily for sometime to obtain your daily quota of natural and free vitamin D and lead a Parkinson free life. And besides, people living in the northern parts of northern hemisphere are always lacking in vitamin D because of very little exposure to the sun.

In many cases, scattered throughout the world, it has been found that Parkinson’s disease perhaps has a hereditary base and some people may be genetically predisposed towards this disease. That is why gene therapy for curing this disease is gaining ground rapidly where good or normal genes will substitute the erroneous genes in a Parkinson’s patient and help him lead a normal life.

Unfortunately Parkinson’s disease cannot be cured in medical parlance but there are various ways to control it, but since the disease is debilitating, if a patient reaches stage 5 (there are 5 stages of this disease), he requires palliative treatment, feeding tubes and other types of life support to survive in that painful vegetative state.