What Is Parkinson's Disease?

Parkinson's disease is a slowly progressive movement disorder that results from the loss of brain cells. Although the disease occurs more often at older ages, especially between the ages of 40 and 70, the disease can also occur between the ages of 20 and 40 in 5% of Parkinson's patients.

Parkinson's disease initially shows symptoms such as reduced facial expressions, monotony and deterioration of speech, leaning slightly forward of the body, slowing of movements, tremors, pain in the arms and limitation of movement. 4 to 6 years before the onset of symptoms, Parkinson's patients are misdiagnosed as having depression, shoulder, neck, and arm pain. The most common initial symptom of the disease is tremor in one hand and fingers at rest and lack of arm swing accompanying walking.

Early treatment slows the progression of the disease and increases the patient's quality of life. According to the stages of the disease, many different treatment methods can be applied by the specialist doctor. First of all, the aim is for the patient to continue his/her life in such a way that he/she will not always need someone to take care of him/her. The decrease in dopaminergic nerve signals that develops with the loss of dopamine-producing cells is balanced by medication. In recent years, deep brain stimulation known as brain stimulation cures the typical symptoms of the disease and increases the quality of life. Deep brain stimulation monitors patients' pulse rate, detects the onset of a series of seizures, and delivers very low electrical currents to the nerve in the neck area.