Incidence rates go up in an aging society
”How many of the readers here have Parkinson’s disease themselves or their family members?” When Director Chen Xianwen mentioned this question at the lecture, 70% or 80% of the readers raised their hands.
In recent years, there are more and more patients with Parkinson’s, and there is a trend of younger people, even in their forties and fifties, start to suffer from the disease.
It is reported that there are about 1.7 million Parkinson’s disease patients in China, accounting for almost half of the world’s patients, yet according to authoritative statistics, about 48% of Chinese patients are not aware that they have the disease, and most patients have not been correctly diagnosed and receive regular treatment for a long time. This is related to the misunderstanding and misdiagnosis of the disease by patients and doctors. In addition, Parkinson’s disease progresses slowly and the early symptoms are very similar to the natural aging process of human beings, which makes people mistakenly believe that “people are getting old and becoming inflexible”, so they often take it lightly and miss the early detection of Parkinson’s disease and the best time for treatment.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurological disorder that mainly affects middle-aged and elderly people, mostly after the age of 60, with symptoms such as involuntary tremor of the hands, head or mouth at rest, muscle rigidity, slow movement and postural balance disorders, resulting in inability to take care of oneself. The earliest systematic description of this disease was made by the British physician Dr. James Parkinson. Dr. Parkinson.
Progressive disease cannot be cured
At the Parkinson’s lecture, many patients were listening to the lecture while their hands and feet were still trembling. The disease makes patients suffer physically and mentally, but what exactly causes Parkinson’s?
Chen Xianwen explained that Parkinson’s is due to a functional degeneration of the part of the brain called the “substantia nigra”, which cannot produce the neurotransmitter “dopamine”, which hinders the patient’s ability to move.
What patients want to know is, will Parkinson’s be cured or not? Will it even go into remission? “Parkinson’s is a disease that cannot be cured by any means.” Chen Xianwen introduced, “Because Parkinson’s is a progressive disease, it will gradually worsen over time.”
However, patients should not be discouraged, Parkinson’s can control the symptoms through treatment, so that they can also work and live as normal people.
Slow movement is an early symptom
Since Parkinson’s is a progressive disease, early diagnosis and treatment is very crucial, so how can you tell that you have Parkinson’s disease?
On the spot, Chen Xianwen said that many elderly people suffering from Parkinson’s early symptoms are slow movement, such as walking, exercise, get up, walking slower than usual, sitting for a long time, no expression on the face commonly known as “mask face”, writing smaller and smaller.
”Many elderly people will move slowly, can this prove that is suffering from Parkinson’s?” One reader asked in disbelief.
Yes, in addition to slow movements, Parkinson’s can be proven by at least one of the following three things: muscle rigidity (e.g., muscles in the arms and legs become stiff), resting tremor (trembling in one arm and leg when at rest), and idiosyncratic gait (walking with a forward gait, panic gait, and inability to stop when trying to stop).
The sooner you take medication, the better
”Can Parkinson’s kill people?” Many readers ask. Chen Xianwen introduced, Parkinson’s itself will not lead to the death of patients, but Parkinson’s can lead to a series of complications, such as long-term bedridden patients may be combined with intra-pulmonary infections, lower limb venous thrombosis, poor nutritional status, immune decompensation, etc., can be life-threatening.
Moreover, many Parkinson’s patients have more or less psychological disorders, believing that they have poor mobility and language, cannot take care of themselves, and need the help and care of their families, and are in a long-term pessimistic mood.
Therefore, the treatment of Parkinson’s is very important and taking medication can relieve the condition, but the sooner patients take medication the better.
Chen Xianwen stressed that because people have a sensitivity period to drugs, if the sensitivity period is over the drugs will not work, so patients who do not affect their lives can first not take drugs, whether you need to take drugs must follow medical advice. In addition, patients who do not respond to drugs can be treated with cytoknife or brain pacemaker surgery.
Myth “trembling” ≠ Parkinson’s disease
When your hands shake, you have Parkinson’s disease? It is easy for many people to equate tremors with Parkinson’s disease. It is often found that teenage children have hand tremors after strenuous exercise or stress, parents will panic and take their children to the doctor, exclaiming that the child has Parkinson’s and asking for help, but in fact it is idiopathic tremor.
Chen Xianwen introduced, some diseases are not Parkinson’s disease, but the performance is similar, such as hyperthyroidism patients will also appear tremors, and some are secondary Parkinson’s syndrome rather than primary Parkinson’s disease, for example, people in carbon monoxide poisoning, cerebral atherosclerosis and other conditions, may be secondary to tremors similar to Parkinson’s symptoms. Therefore, hand tremors do not necessarily mean Parkinson’s disease. Experts suggest that if you find a shaking limb, it is essential to consult a specialist in a timely manner, not to “turn a blind eye”, not to mention “panic”.
Often misdiagnosed as cervical spondylosis depression
Mr. Wang, three years ago, began to left hand inflexibility, inadvertent hand trembling, legs and feet also do not obey. However, when he visited the local hospital, he was diagnosed with cervical spondylosis, and physical therapy and minimally invasive treatment did not work for half a year before he went to the neurology department.
There are some Parkinson’s disease patients with inflexible leg and foot performance is not obvious, instead, the mental aspects are obvious, such as depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, memory loss, loss of sense of smell, etc. These people are often diagnosed as depression and anxiety disorders. Some studies have shown that the incidence of non-motor symptoms in Parkinson’s patients is as high as 100%, with sleep disorders, depression disorders and cognitive dysfunction being the most common.
In addition, Parkinson’s disease is often misdiagnosed as “cerebral atrophy” and “cerebral thrombosis” and a variety of other diseases, and patients are misdiagnosed as “mental illness” and abandoned for long periods of time.
Also easily confused with Alzheimer’s disease
Experts say that 30% to 40% of Parkinson’s patients do not have hand tremors in the early stages, but only slow movements, inflexible hands and feet, stiff limbs, facial expressionlessness, etc., and are often misrepresented as “dementia”, “demented disease”, and even Some men with Parkinson’s disease are misunderstood as “immoderate” because they have few facial expressions and stare at others for a long time. Because these Parkinson’s disease patients have so-called “non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease” such as nervousness, worry, restlessness and insomnia in the early stages of the disease, they are sometimes treated as Alzheimer’s disease by doctors and family members in the early stages.
In fact, there is a difference between Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. The main symptom of Alzheimer’s disease is a decline in intelligence and memory, and patients are often paranoid; Parkinson’s patients have normal intelligence and memory, and the main symptom is muscle stiffness, hand trembling, slow movement, or accompanied by depression and other symptoms.
Prevention of young people to make exercise regular
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system and there is no way to prevent it. What we can do is to eat more antioxidant foods, which is very important. Lots of fruits and small amounts of nuts are good for health; avoid possible causes of the disease that are already known, such as traumatic brain injury, poisoning, and prevention of infectious diseases.
For young people, it is very important to make exercise the fourth meal. Any form of exercise that helps fight Parkinson’s disease, including simple exercises like folding laundry, can help improve symptoms. American human kinesiologists believe that exercise stimulates blood flow and neuronal (brain cell) activity and is as effective as the medications commonly used for Parkinson’s disease.
With Parkinson’s disease in the family, take care to prevent slippage and drink less milk
For Parkinson’s patients who have developed the disease, all treatment is to improve symptoms and slow down disease progression. The main job of the doctor is to adjust the use of medications. There is a dose tolerance for medications throughout a person’s life, for example, the tolerance for dopamine is 4,000 tablets. Therefore, taking medication is like MSG, put a little bit is very fresh, but put too much is not good.
When you have a patient at home, the most important thing is not to take charge of the patient’s affairs; you should pay more attention to the problem of fall prevention.
For example, the bathroom as close as possible to the patient’s living room, the bathroom placed non-slip mats, in the bathtub or shower faucet near the installation of hand grips, or put a small chair for bathing, to prevent falls; clothing style as simple as possible, not buttons, zippers, shoes do not lace up, you can use more sticky buckle type.
When eating, you can use cutlery with large handles, eat more vegetables or whole grains, drink more water, and eat less starchy foods. Fava beans have a preventive effect on Parkinson’s disease and can be eaten a little; milk should not be drunk more than 2 cups a day (about 400 ml) will aggravate the disease.
Live Q&A
At the health lecture, many Parkinson’s patients asked questions to the experts, and Director Chen Xianwen answered them.
How to distinguish idiopathic tremor from Parkinson’s
Q: I started having tremor in my head a few years ago and it has never been serious. My mother and two sisters have this symptom, is this Parkinson’s? Is Parkinson’s hereditary?
A: If two to three people in a family have tremor, Parkinson’s can basically be ruled out, but rather idiopathic tremor, because Parkinson’s is not a genetic disease and inheritance only accounts for 15%, while idiopathic tremor has familial characteristics.
Idiopathic has little impact on life, and there are no medications to relieve it. The disease is very sensitive to alcohol, so the way to judge it is if the symptoms of tremor decrease after drinking alcohol is idiopathic tremor.
Parkinson’s is usually not accompanied by pain
Q: I’ve had Parkinson’s for five years, and I’m pretty well controlled in all aspects. Recently, I feel that my legs are always stiff and painful, what’s wrong? I used to have rheumatism, is the pain Parkinson’s or is my rheumatism to blame?
A: Pain is not the main symptom of Parkinson’s unless it causes complications with other disorders, so your pain may be the cause of other diseases.