Parkinson’s Disease Essay - 1446 Words

Parkinson’s Disease is known as one of the most common progressive and chronic neurodegenerative disorders. It belongs to a group of conditions known as movement disorders. Parkinson disease is a component of hypokinetic disorder because it causes a decreased in bodily movement. It affects people who are usually over the age of 50. It can impair an individual motor as well as non-motor function. Some of the primary symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are characterized by tremors or trembling in hands, legs and arms. In early symptoms the tremor can be unilateral, appearing in one side of body but progression in the disease can cause it to spread to both sides; rigidity or a resistant to movement affects most people with Parkinson’s disease,†¦show more content†¦Dopamine is a brain chemical/Neurotransmitter that work as messenger signal between the Substantia Nigra to the next relay station of the brain, the corpus striatum which helps to produce smooth coord inate movement and also plays a major role to help control muscle’s movement. With Parkinson’s disease, the brain cells that produce dopamine slowly die, which lead to decrease production of Dopamine. The loss of dopamine causes abnormal nerve firing with brain and the cells that control muscle’s movement by sending the messages to the muscles; due to this it becomes really hard to control muscles movement and cause tremors and various other symptoms such as rigidity and difficulty walking and performing daily tasks. Dopamine is not the only neurotransmitter involved in Parkinson’s Disease. Norepinephrine is very relatively close to dopamine and is also involved in Parkinson’s Disease. Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease have loss of nerve ending that produce norepinephrine. Norepinephrine is a major neurotransmitter for sympathetic nervous system, which control many autonomic functions of our body; it causes increase in blood pressure and heart rate. Loss of norepinephrine can help us explain the non-motor symptoms associated with Parkinson’s Disease such as fatigue, decrease in gastric stability and disruption in cognition. Parkinson’s Disease can be hereditaryShow MoreRelatedThe Parkinsons Disease1596 Words   |  6 PagesMany people around the world today suffer from Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. A movement disorder is a disorder impairing the speed, fluency, quality, and ease of movement. 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(Pawha 2010) Etiology The disease happens when the cells in the brain are damaged or stop-producing Dopamine, which helps with muscle movement, thus leaves those patients unable to control theirRead More Parkinsons Disease Essay1642 Words   |  7 PagesParkinsons Disease Parkinson’s Disease (PD), the shaking palsy first described by James Parkinson in 1817, is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder which affects in upwards of 1.5 million Americans. The disease begins to occur around age 40 and has incidence with patient age. One survey found that PD may affect 1% of the population over 60. Incidence seems to be more prominent in men, and tends to progress to incapacity and death over one or two decades. Clinical diagnosis of PD isRead MoreParkinson’s Disease Essay1260 Words   |  6 PagesParkinson’s Disease Parkinson’s Disease (PD), known for its degenerative abilities and debilitating affects, is an illness that affects approximately 1 million Americans. The cause of this disease has not been pinpointed, although strides have been made towards a cure. As our elderly population increases, so does our overwhelming need to find a suitable cure that may one day eliminate this disease. Concepts of PD After watching the video: My father, My Brother, and Me, viewable at www.pbsRead MoreParkinsons Disease Essay1504 Words   |  7 Pages Parkinsons Disease Parkinsons is an idiopathic, multifactorial neurodegenerative disease that attacks neurotransmitters in the brain called dopamine. Dopamine is concentrated in a specific area of the brain called the substantia nigra. The neurotransmitter dopamine is a chemical that regulates muscle movement and emotion. Dopamine is responsible for relaying messages between the substantia nigra and other parts of the brain to control body movement. The death of these neurotransmitters affectsRead MoreEssay Parkinsons Disease3763 Words   |  16 PagesParkinsons Disease In 1817, James Parkinson published his famous treatise: An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, describing the symptoms which now collectively bear his name. Although many scientists before his time had described various aspects of motor dysfunction (ataxia, paralysis, tremor) Parkinson was the first to collect them into a common syndrome; one which he believed formed a distinctive condition. His sixty-six page essay contained five chapters describing symptoms, differential diagnosesRead MoreEssay on Parkinson’s Disease2135 Words   |  9 PagesParkinson’s Disease Parkinson’s disease is a disease with a wide variety of disabilities recognizable as changes in appearance, posture, walking, and balance. In 1817, the English physician James Parkinson described these symptoms in his patients and has had his name become synonymous with the disease. In 1893 the substantia nigra of the basal ganglia was identified as an area of disease for Parkinson’s. Examination with the naked eye reveals a lack of black pigment in this portion of the brainstemRead MoreEssay on Parkinsons Disease4145 Words   |  17 Pages Parkinson’s Disease (from hereon PD) is an extrapyramidal disorder characterized primarily by massive idiopathic degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, resulting in greatly decreased levels of dopamine in the striatum. The diagnosis, which is essentially a clinical judgment due to the lack, thus far of a simple diagnostic test, has historically been on the basis of the presence of at least two of the three main features of PD: bradykinesia (or akinesia or hypokinesia), rigidity