|
|||||||||||||
Diagnosis and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease
 |
The
diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease (PD) in life and its differentiation
from other movement and tremor disorders is still a clinical one,
largely dependent on the delineation of clinical features first
described more than 100 years ago. |
|
Neuropathological
studies have shown that this diagnosis can by unreliable with a
reported 26% rate of misdiagnosis of idiopathic Parkinson's Disease. |
|
Early
differentiation of PD from Essential Tremor (ET) may also be problematic
- between 10 and 25% of ET patents are initially diagnosed and treated
as PD. |
|
Accurate
early diagnosis is important both for prognosis and treatment. Dopaminergic
drugs, designed for the treatment of iPD, provide little or no benefit
to other groups of patents while still conferring the attendant
side-effects. |
Our research has helped to validate a new imaging technique which can be used to diagnose PD at the earliest stages and can help to assess the effectiveness of drugs or surgical techniques to slow down the progress of the disease.
 |
 |
 |
||||||||
 |
|
 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
The three scans on the left show how the uptake of this material is high in control subject or patents with essential tremor but progressively lower as PD progresses. The scan on the right shows the location of the parts of the brain affected by PD.
|
|
|
|
The
Neurosciences Foundation, |