If you have been living under a rock, you might not know that April is Parkinson’s awareness month. This means I should make you aware of something related to Parkinson’s disease. So I could throw out standard definitions or statistics that you might have already heard. But I prefer the other option, which is shocking you! Prepare to have your mind blown. You might want to gather some paper towels…..it could be messy.
There is a concept called the “80% threshold” in Parkinson’s disease. This means that once approximately 80% of the brain’s dopamine producing cells no longer function, the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease begin to appear. How can this be?
If we view our brain as NASA runs its space shuttle, there is a fail-safe in place for all of our bodily functions. The human body is designed with ways to sustain impairment, and injuries. We can unconsciously compensate for our body’s shortcomings. Many Parkies after diagnosis, can look back and see the signs of the disease years before even knowing they had it. They would say, “I just slept on my arm wrong” or “I must have injured my leg.”
What does this all mean? Got your paper towels ready?…….This means that there are thousands of people who are pre-symptomatic of Parkinson’s disease. They have begun to lose their Dopamine producing cells in their brain and now their bodies will begin to show symptoms of the disease. POW! Mind Blown!
Happy Parkinson’s Awareness Month……Don’t forget to share this information!
Kind of a long shot, but I have been repeatedly bringing up PD to 4th through 8th grade students just so they can be better educated. Maybe down the road they will make the connection with a subtle loss of function like smell and PD. Thanks for reminding me that it’s more than tremors.
It is awesome that you are helping to educate children about Neurological diseases. Using every opportunity to raise awareness is important, regardless of age. Thank you!
At Mike’s group yesterday quite a few people mentioned that, looking back, one of the early things that developed with them was loss of smell. Who knew? I always teased my husband for his lack of smell. Now we know.
I know! Can you believe it?! I remember when I was first learning about PD, I was shocked to hear that the loss of smell can happen years prior to movement issues! Crazy how our body tries so hard to keep moving along!
Allison, in fact, there is some evidence that chronic gut problems and loss of smell are early warning signs of encroaching Parkinsons. It is possible that dopamine producing neurons that exist all along the vagas nerve (which runs from your butt to your brain) are killed off first before the destruction begins in the substania nigra, where our motor skill neurons are. A test for ‘lewey bodies’ (encrusted neurons) can be performed (it’s like a not so deep colonoscopy) to see if this destruction is already taking place. The 80% rule just refers to brain neurons.
I have heard some information about that. It is so interesting how the whole body is impacted….we usually just focus on the brain when looking at Parkinson’s disease. Thanks for the comment!
Allison, this IS mind-blowing. The good news is that exercise triggers the growth and regeneration of neurons. The sooner, the better. How much pre-symptomatic Parkinson’s could stay pre-symptomatic if everyone exercised?
It is so true! I see many Parkies that deteriorate at a faster rate when they don’t keep active and exercise everyday! It is all about slowing the disease down!