{"id":3138,"date":"2025-02-20T09:54:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T14:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/?p=3138"},"modified":"2025-02-24T12:06:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T17:06:33","slug":"how-is-parkinsons-disease-recognized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/how-is-parkinsons-disease-recognized\/","title":{"rendered":"What are the Signs of Parkinson’s Disease?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The three cardinal signs of Parkinson’s disease<\/strong> are resting tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. Of these, two are essential for diagnosis.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Bradykinesia is the medical term for movements that are slower than expected. <\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, it may take you longer to stand up or button your shirt. <\/span><\/p>\n

You also might not make automatic movements like swinging your arms while walking. It can even affect your facial expressions. <\/span><\/p>\n

Postural instability is the fourth cardinal sign, but it occurs late, usually after 8 years of disease evolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

– In 70% of cases, uncontrollable rhythmic gestures of the hands, head, or feet are the first symptoms and occur mainly at rest and during periods of stress. <\/span><\/p>\n

Tremor is diminished during movements, disappears during sleep, and is enhanced by stress and fatigue. Tremor becomes less evident as the disease progresses.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Stiffness refers to increase resistance to passive mobilization of the muscles and is more evident in the contra lateral limb voluntary movements.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Bradykinesia refers to slowness of movement but includes decreased spontaneous movements and decreased range of motion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bradykinesia is visible by micrographic (small handwriting, illegible), hypomimia (decreased mimic movements), rarely blinking, and hypophonia (impaired voice).<\/span><\/p>\n

– Postural instability refers to impaired balance and coordination. Its appearance is an important stage in the disease because it is difficult to treat, and postural instability is a common source of disability in advanced stages of disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

– Dementia occurs late in the evolution of Parkinson’s disease and affects 15% – 30% of patients. Recent memory is impaired.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other signs are:<\/span><\/p>\n

– Sleep disorders<\/span><\/p>\n

– Difficulty in swallowing<\/span><\/p>\n

– Salivation (heavy salivation)<\/span><\/p>\n

– Micrographic (written small, illegible)<\/span><\/p>\n

– Hypophonia (diminished, monotonous voice) and difficulty in articulating words<\/span><\/p>\n

– Urinary incontinence and constipation, due to alteration of bowel and bladder function<\/span><\/p>\n

– Confusion, memory loss<\/span><\/p>\n

– Disturbances of gait with small and shamble steps; pronounced tendency to fall through the loss of postural reflexes<\/span><\/p>\n

– Loss of arm balance while walking<\/span><\/p>\n

– Orthostatic hypotension<\/span><\/p>\n

– Seborrheic dermatitis<\/span><\/p>\n

– Changes in personality<\/span><\/p>\n

The second neurological disorder after Alzheimer’s<\/span><\/p>\n

In terms of frequency, Parkinson’s disease is the second neurological disease after Alzheimer’s and is due to faster degradation of neurons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Usually symptoms appear around the age of 55 years, but there are juvenile forms of Parkinson’s. Real onset of the disease is 8-10 years before clinical signs such as progressive loss of smell, sleep or bowel disturbances appear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Characteristic sign is the emergence of movement disorders. At the onset, they are unilateral, first in one hand, within a few years becoming bilateral.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life expectancy over 80 years<\/span><\/p>\n

Drugs do not cure the disease, but prolong the life expectancy of patients so that they exceed the age of 80 years. Initially, treatment consisted of a single type of drug that relieves symptoms.<\/span><\/p>\n

As the disease progresses, the dosage will increase and will join other drugs according to symptoms and complications that give the pills.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The three cardinal signs of Parkinson’s disease are resting tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. Of these, two are essential for diagnosis.   Bradykinesia is the medical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"What are the Signs of Parkinson's Disease? - Parkinson's Disease","description":"The three cardinal signs of Parkinson's disease are resting tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. Of these, two are essential for diagnosis.   Bradykinesia is"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-parkinsons","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/parkinsons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}