Researchers closer to early detection of Parkinson's disease

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Researchers closer to early detection of Parkinson's disease
September 26, 2012
(Phys.org)—In collaboration with colleagues at Oxford, a team of researchers at Umeå University in Sweden has now further elaborated its discovery of a way to detect Parkinson's disease at an early stage, and applications in clinical care are not far away.

The project is an example of bridging the gap between basic and clinical research in care environments. The new findings are based on close cooperation between the medical chemist Ludmilla Morozova-Roche's and the neurologist Lars Forsgren's research teams at Umeå University and Jason Davis's team at Oxford University in the UK, who were primarily responsible for the chemical analyses. Their findings are now being published in the journal Chemical Science. Parkinson's disease attacks the nervous system and, like many other diseases, is caused by proteins that lump together into so-called amyloid.

Behind these new findings lies a discovery from the spring of 2011, when the Umeå scientists were able to determine endogenous antibodies against the most important amyloid protein, alpha-synuclein. These antibodies were seen as being able to function as a diagnostic marker, thereby enabling early detection of the disease. In the new article the discovery is elaborated further in the form of a simplified way to carefully measure the content of antibodies in a blood sample. With the newly developed method – this involves electrochemical analysis of 10 microliters of blood in just a few minutes – it is possible not only to see a clear difference between individuals with incipient Parkinson's disease and healthy controls but also to measure and establish the advance of the disease with great precision.

Read more at: Researchers closer to early detection of Parkinson's disease
 
Den how come Muhammad Ali got Parkinson's?
:eusa_eh:
Boxers work to knock out Parkinson's symptoms
10 Apr.`13 — When Mary Yeaman was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2006, she could barely bring herself to leave her house. Her muscles were weak, and she was having a hard time coping.
"I've always done sports and stuff like that, and it was getting to be too much just sitting and doing nothing," she said. In 2007, she found Rock Steady Boxing in Indianapolis. She now attends classes every week and has seen her symptoms ease as a result of a rigorous regimen of punching, jumping, jogging and stretching. "It makes my muscles stronger. I can walk better," said Yeaman, 64.

Rock Steady, founded in 2006 by former Marion County prosecutor Scott C. Newman after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's at age 40, gives people suffering from the disease an outlet to ease their symptoms and improve their physical fitness. Through boxing-inspired fitness classes, participants use exercise to slow the symptoms of a progressive neurological disease that causes tremors, muscle rigidity, loss of balance and cognitive, speech and vision impairment. "Sometimes people get very discouraged when they are diagnosed with Parkinson's, understandably facing a disease that is progressive, that's going to worsen over time and that can take a big toll on them," said neurologist and Rock Steady board member Dr. S. Elizabeth Zauber. "When they come to a gym and realize that ... there are people that are experiencing the same thing (and) there is something they can do about it to get better and perhaps slow down the course of their disease, then that improves their overall outlook. They realize they're still very capable physically even though they have a neurological disease."

Rock Steady offers 16 classes a week. The organization's 125 clients range in age from late 30s to early 90s. Classes in the gym adorned with photos of boxer Muhammad Ali, who also suffers from Parkinson's, start slow with a warm-up before participants dive into more rigorous exercise. Coaches set up several stations throughout the small gym with a different exercise at each one. Participants punch hanging boxing bags and speed balls, jump rope and toss medicine balls. The exercises at Rock Steady are based on boxing drills, and they're meant to extend the perceived capabilities of those suffering from Parkinson's. There are four different class levels, based on the severity of the symptoms.

Boxing works well to combat the disease because of the range of motion required in the exercises, Zauber said. "I see all the time in my patients that start exercising or my patients that are exercising that they tend to function better," she said. "They have improvements in their balance, improvements in sleep, in mood and energy level." The organization offers more than just physical improvement. "It's a support system," said Joyce Johnson, executive director of the organization. "It's being able to come here where people understand the symptoms and challenges of the disease." Yeaman said Rock Steady is the "best thing that's ever happened" to her and called her classmates her "second family." "These people are always there for you no matter what happens," she said.

More Boxers work to knock out Parkinson's symptoms
 
Interesting information.

My ninety year old father was just diagnosed as "pre Parkinsons" by the VA. They must have some kind of test or other to do that.
 
Man arrested `cause he wasn't smiling...
:eek:
Parkinson's sufferers 'face regular discrimination'
14 April 2013 - Nearly half of those with Parkinson's face regular discrimination, such as having their symptoms mistaken for drunkenness, a survey suggests.
The survey of more than 2,000 people was commissioned by charity Parkinson's UK. One person in 500 people is affected by the condition in Britain. Parkinson's sufferer Mark Worsfold was arrested during last year's Olympics because police thought he looked suspicious. He was detained during the cycling road race in Leatherhead, Surrey, reportedly because he was not smiling - the condition means his face can appear expressionless. Parkinson's is a progressive neurological condition that attacks the part of the brain that controls movement. The main symptoms of Parkinson's are tremors or shaking that cannot be controlled, and rigidity of the muscles, which can make movement difficult and painful.

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Mark Worsfold was reportedly arrested because he was not smiling

Public attitude

Speech, language and facial expressions can also be affected. Most people who get it are aged 50 or over but younger people can have it too. The survey found that one in five people living with Parkinson's had been mistaken for being drunk, while one in 10 had been verbally abused or experienced hostility in public because of their condition. Around 62% said they thought the public had a poor understanding of how the condition affects people. More than 37% of those surveyed said they felt isolated when in public and 60% said they felt uncomfortable or nervous.

But the research also revealed that discrimination did not just come from strangers. Ten per cent said they had been treated badly while at work, and 30% said that friends treated them differently because they did not understand the condition. The charity said the survey results painted a deeply disturbing picture about public attitudes towards those living with the degenerative disease.

'Hurtful comments'
 
Mobilaser helps Parkinson's patients walk...
:clap2:
New Laser Device Helps Parkinson's Patients Walk
January 31, 2014 ~ Parkinson’s disease slowly destroys the brain’s ability to control the muscles, depriving the patients of their mobility. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic, in Jacksonville, Florida, have developed a laser-based device that helps patients walk again.
Four years ago, Wayne Puckett could get around only in a wheelchair, because a form of Parkinson’s disease had damaged the connection between his brain and his leg muscles. “It is a hard thing to take and you feel like less of a person. You know, your kids, you are not able to do as much and they see it,” he said.

In 2010, neurologist Jay Van Gerpen, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, told Puckett about a device that would help him walk again. At first, Puckett did not believe him. “He told me that he has a little red line that was going to be able to make me walk. I was like, ain't no way,” said Puckett.

Van Gerpen calls his device ‘the mobilaser.’ A laser, attached to a walker, generates a beam of light, which provides a visual cue for patients with difficulty walking, because of a neurological disease or brain trauma. “There is a part of the brain when you want to initiate walking in the prefrontal cortex in the basal ganglia, and if those areas get damaged then those signals don't get to the primary motor cortex,” said Van Gerpen.

By watching the laser’s red line, the patient concentrates on a different task. That makes his brain send signals along a different path to the motor cortex, avoiding the damaged areas where those signals get jammed. “We are capitalizing on the parts of the brain that are working quite well to help compensate for those that are not,” he said. Van Gerpen said most of his patients improved their mobility, and Wayne Puckett said the mobilaser helped him get back his life.

New Laser Device Helps Parkinson's Patients Walk
 
Cool. They might be able to detect a disease they are clueless about and can't cure earlier.
 
Smartphone technology could help diagnose and treat Parkinson's disease...

'Pocket' diagnosis for Parkinson’s
9 September 2014 ~ Smartphone technology revealed at the British Science Festival could help diagnose and treat Parkinson's disease.
Symptoms of Parkinson's are currently difficult to measure objectively after the patient leaves the doctor's clinic. New smartphone software developed at Aston University will bring the doctor into the patient's pocket to assess their movements and speech at home. Trials are now recruiting online, seeking people with and without the disease. Parkinson's is one of the commonest neurodegenerative diseases, affecting around 127,000 people in the UK.

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Diagnosis is based on symptoms including tremor, stiffness and difficulty with movements and speech. However studies have shown that up to 20% of people diagnosed with Parkinson's show no evidence of the disease in post-mortem examinations. "Most people who have the disease will never be objectively measured," explained Dr Max Little, a mathematical researcher with Aston's Nonlinearity and Complexity Research Group. Dr Little's team has developed software that uses the microphone and motion detector of a standard smartphone to provide data to supplement traditional clinical assessment.

Machine learning

Voice change can be an early indicator of Parkinson's. Patients or their family may notice their voice becoming quieter, drifting in pitch and showing vocal tremors. Over the past eight years, Dr Little and colleagues have been developing tools to capture and quantify these changes in the lab and in the home. Using machine learning they are now able to "very accurately separate those who have Parkinson's from those who don't" - with up to 99% agreement with the diagnosis made by the neurologist in clinic. Their most recent study, the Parkinson's Voice Initiative, included 17,000 participants providing voice samples via telephone. Smartphones use accelerometers to measure force in three dimensions. These sensors can be used to collect data on Parkinson's with the phone stowed in the pocket - detecting "freezing of gait" when walking and other characteristic signs of the disease. By integrating this with GPS and other smartphone data, Dr Little's software can perform complex analyses of behaviours including "how many phone calls you make, what's your socialisation behaviour, are you spending a lot of time outside of the house, are you predominantly sitting or walking, how much do you explore your environment" - all of which can contribute to a diagnostic algorithm for Parkinson's.

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Parkinson's is one of the commonest neuro-degenerative diseases

Personal diagnostic software raises new issues for diseases like Parkinson's which currently lack disease-modifying treatments. "For the first time, we could do population screening for Parkinson's," explained Dr Michele Hu, consultant neurologist at the Oxford Parkinson's Disease Centre. "But preclinical testing is a massive ethical can of worms - the issues must be carefully pre-empted and thought out. We don't know yet how accurate this could be as a predictor and the only way we will know is by very carefully following at-risk individuals over time." "The ethics clearly has to be worked out - what are we going to use these tools for? What would you like to know? What would you not like to know?" asked Dr Little. "We have made this tool and it's up to the community to decide what to do with it."

Ongoing trials
 

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