After undergoing three months of physical therapy for what he thought was a problem with his spine, a 50-year-old Taichung man discovered that his symptoms — involuntary tremors and frequent falling — were manifestations of stage 3 Parkinson’s disease, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital neurology department director Sung Chao-chia (宋兆家) said.
His symptoms noticeably improved within a week after he started treatment with the drug amino acid L-DOPA, Sung said.
Parkinson’s disease typically occurs in people older than 50, with those older than 60 having a 1 to 2 percent probability of being affected, Sung said.
However, people as young as 45 have been diagnosed with the disease, he said.
Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease that primarily affects movement, Sung said.
Intellect and cognition are unaffected in the early stages, with dementia typically only occurring in the later stages, he added.
He said Parkinson’s disease is divided into five stages, based on the severity of the symptoms: Stage 1 causes stiffness and tremors on one side of the body and crooked handwriting; stage 2 comes with stiffness, tremors and slowed movement on both sides of the body; in stage 3, the patient frequently falls and loses balance; in stage 4 the patient has difficulty walking independently; and in stage 5, the disease causes extreme stiffness or freezing and patients are forced to stay in bed or sit in a wheelchair, unable to perform daily activities independently.
Only if people are aware of the symptoms of Parkinson’s are they likely to detect its onset in stage 1 and receive early treatment, Sung said, adding that most patients are in stage 3 by the time they are diagnosed.
Parkinson’s can be effectively treated with medication, but patients must stay on medication for a long period and maintain a high enough concentration of the medicine in their blood, Sung said.
On the other hand, a lack of treatment allows the disease to progress earlier and more quickly into stage 5, he added.
Early-stage Parkinson’s is often mistaken for regular aging or deterioration in the cervical vertebrae or the spine, Sung said, urging people to use a self-assessment tool developed by the Taiwan Neurological Society.
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