Sunday, February 3, 2008

Parkinson's Disease Diagnosis

It is difficult to diagnose Parkinson’s disease in the early stages. Early on, Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed almost primarily by its symptoms, and studies indicate that physicians make an incorrect initial diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease in between 10% and 40% of cases. Blood tests are not helpful for diagnosis.

Parkinson’s disease is just one of several neurologic movement disorders that produce similar symptoms.

It is important that the physician you are seeing has experience with all of the different disorders that can masquerade as Parkinson’s disease.

In some of these diseases people quickly become totally disabled; in others, the disease progresses extremely slowly; and in yet others, illness is chronic (always present) and may have more severe symptoms as time goes on. Because the natural history, or progression, of these diseases varies greatly, proper diagnosis is crucial. People need to know which disease they have.

The Neurologic Examination
When performing a neurologic examination to evaluate a patient with a movement disorder, the doctor takes a medical history and performs a physical examination. The doctor asks the patient and the family members or friends about symptoms and observes the patient, asking him or her to walk around the room, sit down, stand up, turn around, and so on.

Diagnostic Tests
Unfortunately, there is no diagnostic test that can confirm Parkinson’s disease. Laboratory testing of the blood of patients with the symptoms typical of Parkinson’s disease only rarely uncovers any abnormality.

Electroencephalograms (EEGs) record some aspects of brain electrical activity, but they are not effective in spotting Parkinson’s disease.

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