400,000 Italians suffer from it. Some ailments apparently unrelated to the disease represent useful signals for possibly implementing more timely treatments
The knowledge of the symptoms and signs that can make Parkinson’s recognized, and sometimes to make it suspected or recognized well in advance, is still very little widespread. The meetings open to the public in the various centers belonging to the Italian Society of Neurology (Sin) and to Italian Parkinson’s Society (Limpe-Dismov) with neurologists who treat the tremor disease from which 400,000 Italians suffer.
Not just trembling
Parkinson’s is often thought to have tremor as its only hallmark. But even if this illness And noted for the classic tremor at rest (when no movement is being made), they are there other symptoms. The detail of tremor at rest is important to distinguish it from other movement disorders such as Essential tremor
which appears with even trivial movements such as drinking a coffee. Besides trembling there are motor slowness and stiffness. We talk about bradykinesiaMeaning what slowing of movements and of akinesia Meaning what difficulty starting them. With this they join balance disturbances and a gait call captocormic where the patient, bending forward more and more, seems to follow his shadow in small steps.
Calligraphy
However, there are symptoms, as mentioned, that are useful for predicting the disease well in advance. One that family members can notice is the micrograph reported by the French neurologist Jean Martin Charcot: the patient begins to write in increasingly minute characters. Early identification of Parkinson’s disease is important because when the first symptoms appear, almost 70% of dopaminergic neurons, the elective target of the disease, are compromised. “If the same drugs used in advanced disease were used immediately in the best dosages,” he says Alfredo Berardelli of the La Sapienza University of Rome and president of the Italian Society of Neurology – this percentage could be reduced and at least by delaying the damage”.
Sleep
80% of patients present with the so-called Rbd
acronym of Rem sleep behavior disorder, i.e. behavior disorder in REM sleep, the one in which you dream. It mainly affects males between the ages of 40 and 70 who, dreaming of being attacked, they defend themselves with kicks and punches of which he often makes the expenses who sleeps with them.
«According to various studies from 25 to 80% of those with Rbd will develop Parkinson’s disease within 5-15 years and this makes this symptom an important predictor of disease», specifies Giuseppe Plazzi of the University
of Bologna, president of the European Narcolepsy Network.
StThe alarm bell of the so-called Rls, acronym of Restless legs syndrome
Meaning what Restless legs syndrome
which causes uncontrolled movements of the legs and which occurs up to 4-5 years earlier. “If studies on larger populations were to confirm it, this symptom too could be considered an important predictor,” comments Plazzi.
Taste and smell
Another symptom that has returned to the fore with Covid is represented by smell disorderswhich also occur in Parkinson’s disease, in about half of the cases up to four years before the more typical clinical manifestations of the condition. In 29 percent of cases there is also a reduction in tastepartly linked to excess salivation, the so-called parkinsonian sialorrhea.
Constipation
Over half of patients suffer from stubborn constipation. This annoying symptom can precede all the others because the dysfunction of the intestinal flora leads to the transformation of the protein synuclein in alpha-synuclein
and which is now considered the excellent marker of Parkinson’s disease, so much so that monoclonal antibodies are being studied against it with which to obtain a sort of anti-Parkinsonian “vaccine”. The first to point the finger at this abnormal protein was Heiko Braak of the University of Frankfurt in 2002.
Strategies to avoid freezing
The freezing
also called paradoxical akinesia or freezing, can appear at any stage of Parkinson’s disease even independently of levodopa therapy of which it is sometimes a side effect. It is the abrupt incapacity to initiate movements, especially the path, especially if they cross narrow passages or changes of direction are made. Patients feel their feet glued to the ground without being able to take the next step: they may not be able to get on an escalator or, worse, get off it at the end of the ride. The freezing lasts from seconds to minutes, but there are strategies to avoid it mentally implementing a voluntary motor program that surpasses the automatic one altered in these patients: putting a stick on the ground and walking thinking about stepping over it, or thinking about marching like soldiers or using a piano metronome to cadence the steps.
August 30, 2023 (change August 30, 2023 | 08:25 am)
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