Recognizing early Parkinson’s disease from the telltale signs

  The name Parkinson’s disease, although somewhat foreign, is not new to many people. As human life expectancy increases and the number of elderly people increases, many people know that there are Parkinson’s disease patients among people they know well. Patients with Parkinson’s disease are also frequent visitors in neurology clinics.  The main symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are resting tremor, muscle tonicity and reduced movement. Postural dysreflexia, which appears with progression, is also a core symptom of Parkinson’s disease, but postural dysreflexia does not appear in the early stages.  Resting tremor: People with Parkinson’s disease have rhythmic tremors in their hands or legs when they are quiet, also known as “tremor”. The tremor can affect the accuracy of the patient’s movements, such as picking up food or drinking water. The more worried and nervous a person is in various situations, the more severe the tremor becomes.  Myotonicity: Some people have tremors that are not severe, but the muscles are tense and the body is stiff. This results in slow movement and clumsy movements. Throat muscle tonus causes slurred speech and difficulty swallowing. Facial muscle stiffness causes a lack of facial expression like a “mask face”. Some people may fall and break bones easily because of the stiffness and poor coordination of the body.  Decreased movement: Slow onset of movement accompanied by a progressive decrease in the speed and amplitude of repetitive movements, reduced oscillation of one or both upper limbs when walking, and difficulty starting to walk as if the feet were glued together.  In addition, Parkinson’s disease is often associated with annoying symptoms such as excessive sweating, constipation, and sleep disturbances.  The key difficulty in diagnosing Parkinson’s disease is that the examiner has to think about it. No single sign is definitive for the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, although resting tremor on one side is closer. Because of the symptoms and complex composition of Parkinson’s disease, one must maintain a sufficient index of sensitivity to it.  The diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is primarily clinical, by virtue of signs and symptoms, and there is no single laboratory test that confirms Parkinson’s disease. Do not expect that there will be some laboratory test that will make the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease suddenly leap to mind.  There are large individual differences in the first symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Statistics show the following: tremor (70.5%), tonicity or slow movements (19.7%), dyscalculia and/or dysgraphia (12.6%), gait disturbances (11.5%), muscle spasms and pain (8.2%), speech disturbances (3.8%), generalized weakness and muscle weakness (2.7%), and drooling and mask face (1.6% each).                          The clinical characteristics of Parkinson’s disease patients are illustrated The pain of Parkinson’s disease patients: tremor, cogwheel-like muscle tonus, postural abnormalities, paralysis All symptoms will gradually worsen, especially body stiffness and postural balance disorders can seriously affect the quality of life until the patient is unable to take care of himself/herself causing heavy psychological and life stress to the patient and his/her family. Another name for Parkinson’s disease is tremor and palsy, which describes its characteristics: tremor and palsy. The patient starts with tremors, but ends up bedridden.  Like all diseases, Parkinson’s disease requires early treatment to maintain the individual’s quality of life in the long term.  So, is there a way to diagnose Parkinson’s disease early? The answer is yes.  Some of the following methods are very simple and can help us diagnose Parkinson’s disease early.  1. Lowercase syndrome: It is a movement disorder that occurs in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Observe the words written by the patient, the writing will become smaller and smaller, known as “lowercase syndrome”, which has a great impact on the patient’s work and life.  2, head drop test: let the patient lie on his back, head resting on the examiner’s left hand, ask him to close his eyes, the whole body relaxed. Use your left hand to slowly hold the patient’s head up and then suddenly release the hand. When normal, the head falls immediately. If the fall is slow, the test is positive. This indicates that the patient may have Parkinson’s disease. This test should be repeated several times, pay attention to careful observation and avoid artificial muscle tension, the test is reliable.  3.Shoulder swing test: let the patient’s two upper limbs hang naturally on both sides of the body, the examiner faces the standing patient, both hands on the shoulders, shaking the patient’s shoulders back and forth, so that the two upper limbs to the trunk as the center of the back and forth twisting, observe and compare the amplitude of swing on both sides, Parkinson’s disease patients with smaller swing amplitude on the sick side.  4.Lower limb pendulum test. The patient sits on the edge of the examination bed, both lower limbs are relaxed and droop naturally, the examiner raises both lower limbs and then quickly puts them down, normal people swing back and forth like a pendulum, Parkinson’s disease patients, especially one-sided, stop swinging earlier than the healthy side after putting down the sick side.  According to the above approach, even if you are not a doctor, you can initially determine whether the patient is suffering from Parkinson’s disease based on his or her performance.