- More than 10 million people around the world have Parkinson’s disease.
- Many people with Parkinson’s may go undiagnosed due to a lack of symptoms or receive a misdiagnosis.
- Researchers from the University of Oxford have developed a new blood test to help detect Parkinson’s disease before main symptoms occur.
More than 10 million people globally have Parkinson’s disease — a neurological condition affecting a person’s movement and thinking skills.
Although there are some commonly known symptoms of the disease, sometimes signs take a long time to show or may be mistaken for other issues.
A poll of more than 2,000 people conducted in January 2020 by nonprofit organization Parkinson’s UK found that 26% of them reported being misdiagnosed with a different disease before receiving a Parkinson’s diagnosis.
While there is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease, the earlier it is detected the more treatment and care a person can receive to help slow disease progression.
For this reason, scientists have been working on ways to test for Parkinson’s disease before symptoms even show.
One such team of researchers is from the University of Oxford, which recently published a study in the journal
According to Dr. George K. Tofaris, professor of neurology and translational neuroscience in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford, and lead author of this study, the brain has a certain reserve of dopamine and ability to compensate.
This means that, by the time people with Parkinson’s disease present to the clinic with the familiar movement disorder, an estimated 60% or so of dopamine-producing nerve cells have already died and neurodegeneration is often widespread.
“At this stage, it is difficult to restore the neuronal networks,” Dr. Tofaris explained to Medical News Today. “On the other hand, if we could…
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