Parkinsons and Movement Disorders

Parkinson's affliction  is a dynamic issue of the sensory system that influences advancement. It develops gradually, at times starting with a barely distinguishable tremor in just a single hand. In any case, while a tremor may be the most surely understood indication of Parkinson's infection, the turmoil in like manner frequently causes strength or directing of advancement. In the early periods of Parkinson's disease, your face may demonstrate beside zero demeanours, or your arms may not swing when you walk. Your discourse may end up being fragile or slurred. Parkinson's disease signs compound as your condition propels after some time.

Movement disorders are clinical syndromes with either an excess of movement or a paucity of voluntary and involuntary movements, unrelated to weakness or spasticity. Movement disorders are synonymous with basal ganglia or extrapyramidal diseases. Movement disorders are conventionally divided into two major categories- hyperkinetic and hypokinetic.

Hyperkinetic movement disorders refer to dyskinesia, or excessive, often repetitive, involuntary movements that intrude upon the normal flow of motor activity.

The common movement disorders include:

Neurology is the division of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of all classes of conditions and diseases involving the brain, the spinal cord and the peripheral nerves. There are about a hundred billion neurons in the brain, able to produce their own impulses and of getting and transmitting impulses from neighbouring cells. Neurology includes the study of the central nervous system, the peripheral nervous system and the autonomic nervous system.

Some Neurological disorders are:

Neurocognitive disorder is a reduction of cognitive function in one of these areas, especially when physical changes can be seen to have occurred in the cerebrum, for example, after neurological disease, brain injury or drug use. It occurs due to Parkinson Disease with behaviour disturbance. According to the recent projects of the United Nations between 2000 to 2050 the people over 65 years of age will exceed 1.1 billion worldwide. For estimation by 2050 Parkinson’s disease will be $285 billion in the USA.

Some Neurocognitive disorders are:

There is no direct treatment for Parkinson’s disease as well any blood test or brain scan that confirms the diagnosis. Most Parkinson’s disease treatments aim to restore the proper of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine and dopamine by increasing the dopamine levels. Treatment is totally based on the medical history and a neurological examination. At present there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, medications can lessen its symptoms and later stages surgery can be done. Parkinsons in the body; Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a test that produces very clear image of the human body without the use of X-rays. Instead of MRI uses a large magnet, radio waves, and a computer to produce these images. Medications are in three stages- first includes the drug which is known as levodopa which increase the dopamine in the brain, the second set of drugs eases some of the Parkinsons disease symptoms and the third set of drugs helps to control the non-motor symptoms including depression.

Neuropharmacology is the study of the effects of drugs on the nervous system, with the aim of developing compounds that offer healing benefit in humans with psychiatric and neurological disease. There are two main branches of neuropharmacology which are behavioral and molecular. Behavioral neuropharmacology concentrates on the study of how drugs affect human behavior and how drug dependence and addiction affect the human brain. Molecular neuropharmacology implicates the study of neurons and their neurochemical interactions, with the goal of developing drugs that have suitable effects on neurological function.

Neurophysiology is a division of physiology and neuroscience that studies nervous system function relatively nervous system construction. Neurophysiology aids in the analysis and observing of neurological diseases and it studies relationships between the brain and behavior, especially in the case of individuals with neurological concession. Neurophysiology is associated with the electrophysiology, neuroanatomy, psychology and mathematical neuroscience.

The foremost technologies involved in neurophysiology devices are

Parkinson’s disease is one of the well-known age related neurodegenerative disorder, second in recurrence just to Alzheimer's disease. Parkinson’s disease also causes extensive injury of the motor or sensory pathways extending beyond the pigmental brain stem nuclei. Although the disease symptoms can be controlled by Levodopa but the etiology of the Parkinsons disease remains obscure. In the United States half a million of people are diagnosed as having PD and it is predicted to be triple over next 50 years. PD appears to be slightly more in men than in women usually ranging from 1.2:1 ratio upto 1.5:1. The Parkinsons disease market in US is expected to grow at a rate of 7.3% from sales of $1.1 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in 2022. The population with Parkinson’s disease incurred medical expenses of approximately $14.4 per year in United States. In U.S. 15% of people with PD were in the nursing homes as compared to 9 % are of all residents aged 75-84.

It is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gently degrades over time. Alzheimer's disease is assumed to be caused by the irregular build-up of proteins inside and outside the brain cells. One of the proteins involved is called amyloid, deposits of which form plaques around brain cells. The other protein is called tau, deposits of which form tangles within brain cells. The most common early symptom is struggling in remembering recent actions. As the disease develops, symptoms can include problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, loss of motivation, self-neglect, and behavioral issues.

Dementia is a common term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with everyday life. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease.

Common Symptoms of dementia include:

Neuromuscular disorder is a disease that affects the peripheral nervous system which includes muscles, nerve-muscle junction, and peripheral nerves in the limbs and motor nerve cells in the spinal cord. Approximately 5600 people in the US are diagnosed with ALS each year. In US each year 750,000 people experience stroke, 11000 people suffer spinal cord injury, 500,000 people suffering from cerebral palsy, 270,000 with multiple sclerosis and 5.3 million with the after effects of a traumatic brain injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Stroke is the unexpected death of brain cells due to lack of oxygen, affected by blockage of blood flow or breakout of an artery to the brain. Symptoms of stroke can be sudden loss of speech, weakness, or paralysis of one side of the body.

Risk factor for the Parkinsons disease mainly depends on age, hereditary, sex and exposure to toxins. Men are more affected than women; 25%-45% are caused by the loss of dopamine which causes rigid movements. Advancing age is a factor that is more consistently associated with an increase in the Parkinsons disease; only 5%-10% of people get Parkinsons disease before age of 40. It involve some of the symptoms like anxiety, cognitive problems, tremor or shaking, depression, trouble sleeping, low voice, loss of smell etc. Now a day’s Head injury and Gene variation is also a factor for Parkinson’s disease.

Neural transplantation is the transplantation of nerve cells and tissues into the brain and spinal cord. The cell replacement for Parkinsons Disease is based on two hypothesis- firstly the early symptoms of PD are dependent on the loss of the dopaminergic neurons in the nigrostriatal pathways and secondly the dopaminergic neurons and gathered into dopamine deficient striatum can replace those neurons which has been lost during the disease process and can reverse some extent of the major symptoms of Parkinson disease.

Neurosurgery is the branch of drug that deals with surgery of the nervous system. Utmost people think of neurosurgery as brain surgery but it's much further. It's the medical specialty concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of patients with injury to, or diseases/disorders of the brain, spinal cord and spinal column, and peripheral nerves within all parts of the body. The specialty of neurosurgical care includes both grown-up and Pediatric cases. Dependent upon the nature of the injury or disease a neurological surgeon may give surgical and/ or non-surgical care. 

Some Neurosurgery procedures include:

Molecular neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience that observes generalities in molecular biology which is useful to the nervous systems of animals. The scope of this topic includes mechanisms of molecular signaling in the nervous system, molecular neuroanatomy, the effects of genetics and epigenetics on neuronal development, and the molecular basis for neuroplasticity and neurodegenerative diseases. As with molecular biology, molecular neuroscience is a relatively new field that is considerably dynamic.

Neurodegeneration is the continuing loss of structure or function of neurons, including their death. Neurodegenerative disorders usually get worse over time and have no cure. They may be hereditary or be affected by a tumor or stroke. Many neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic multiple sclerosis, lateral sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease, and prion diseases occur as a result of neurodegenerative processes. Such diseases are incurable, resulting in progressive degeneration of neurons.

Molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases include:

Parkinson’s disease is the essential growth driver of the worldwide Parkinsons disease therapeutics. Most mutations such as SNCA, PINK1, PARK2, PARK7, PLA2G6, FBXO7 and ATP13A2 are the rare cause of the disease and one particular mutation in LRRK2 has been found common in certain populations. The enzymatic function of the mitochondrial localized kinase PINK1 is thereby essential and delivers a fast production of Parkin from its uniform distribution in the cytoplasm to damaged mitochondria. Most people with Parkinson's disease eventually need a medication called levodopa. Levodopa is absorbed by the nerve cells in your brain and turned into the chemical dopamine, which is used to transmit messages between the parts of the brain and nerves that control movement. The therapeutics of Parkinsons Disease includes designing a Clinical trial for Parkinson, Outcome of clinical trials in PSP, therapeutic options for mood, Cognition and Psychosis. Physical therapy cannot cure Parkinson’s disease but therapy can help to compensate the changes brought about by the condition, physical therapy can help with balance problems, fatigue, pain, weakness and sometimes local heat application is produced with high frequency to relieve muscle aches and pain.

It is important to develop a solid Parkinson’s disease management plan because Parkinson’s disease is a chronic disease. Managing with Parkinson’s disease includes building a health care team with proper doctors, proper intake of medications, exercises, nutrition and sleep.

Neurodermatitis is a skin condition which starts with an itchy patch in the skin. This itch-scratch cycle makes the affected skin to convert thick and leathery. It may also progress several itchy spots, mainly on the neck, wrists, forearms, legs or anal region. It is also known as lichen simplex chronicus is not life-threatening or infectious. But the itching can be so penetrating or regular which is disrupts your sleep, sexual function and quality of life.

Symptoms of neurodermatitis include:

It is a technique which aims at treating diseases by genetically modifying population of cells into the patient body instead of using drugs and surgery to prevent from any disorder. Various methods have been developed for the gene delivery to the target cells which includes viral and non-viral systems. It is a creation of producing new cells that will produce a specific neurotransmitter which is dopamine to protect the neural system and then these cells are transplanted to the patient having Parkinsons disease because the neurons cannot be renewed further. Some important reasons are there for focusing gene therapy which includes firstly there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease; secondly some genes which are identified can modulate the neuron phenotype.

Gene therapy clinical trials in PD have focused on:

Paediatric movement disorder is a moderately new and developing field of child neurology. While hypokinetic scatters, for example, Parkinson disease prevails in adults. There are many genetic disease which cause secondary movement disorders in childhood. Propels in paediatric movement disorder have been made by solidifying movement disorder definitions, growing the range of clinical phenotypes, understanding genetic reasons for movement disorders, and thoroughly assessing treatment adequacy for normal movement disorders. The central nervous systems typically implicated in disorders of movement are the basal and frontal cortex. Five areas were highlighted these advances: consensus definitions, newly found PRRT2 mutation, clinical and genetic range of GLUT-1 lack and neurodegeneration with brain iron aggregation (NBIA) issue, and exhaustive behavioural interventions for tics (CBIT).

Pediatric movement disorders Include:

Mental health is important at every stage of life from childhood to old age through maturity. Mental health includes emotional, psychological, and social health. It affects how we suppose, sense, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices.  

Mental disorders or mental illnesses are conditions which affect your thinking, feeling, mood, and behavior. They may be rare or long-lasting. They can affect your ability to relate to others and function every day.

Some common Mental Disorders include: