PARKINSON'S DISEASE NEWS

18th June 2010 - New research

TREMOR WRONGLY DIAGNOSED AS PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Journal of Neurological  Neurosurgical Psychiatry [2010] Jun 14 [Epub ahead of print] (N.P.Bajaj, V.Gontu, J.Birchall, J.Patterson, D.G.Grosset, A.J.Lees) Complete abstract

Tremor is often wrongly assumed to be Parkinson's Disease. This is despite tremor occurring in a wide variety of medical disorders besides Parkinson's Disease, and failing to occur in nearly a third of people who do have Parkinson's Disease.  This contributes to a quarter of people diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease being wrongly diagnosed, and consequently treated for a medical disorder that they do not even have. This study examined the clinical accuracy of movement disorder specialists in distinguishing tremor dominant Parkinson's Disease from other medical disorders in which tremor occurred. As many as a quarter of those patients assessed were diagnosed as having Parkinson's Disease when they did not even have it.  As many as a fifth of the patients that did have Parkinson's Disease were wrongly claimed not to have it. This study demonstrated the inadequacy of assessing Parkinson's Disease solely according to symptoms instead of using biochemical means. For more current news go to Parkinson's Disease News.

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Parkinson's Disease News details all significant new research, news reports, new books, and new resources concerning Parkinson's Disease and those medical disorders that often coincide with Parkinson's Disease. It is compiled from an analysis of  all newly published research, news reports, new clinical trials, all newly published books, and new web sites. A summary and analysis of the new research are provided,  as well as links to the complete abstracts and news reports