200,000 people suffer from Parkinson disease in France, a neurodegenerative pathology which is the second cause of motor disability in adults following stroke. Each year these are 25,000 new cases which are declared, but the diagnoses often come too late. This results in less effective patient care.
“Parkinson’s disease begins 5 to 10 years before the appearance of the first clinical signs”, recalls the Ministry of Health. Scientists are therefore constantly trying to improve our knowledge and, once once more, they have succeeded: two new early signs of the disease were discovered.
Hearing loss and epilepsy, early hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease
This is the first such large UK study ever carried out in such a diverse population. The results were published in the journal JAMA Neurology. They show that epilepsy and hearing loss are two early signs of Parkinson’s disease. To reach this conclusion, the researchers studied the electronic primary healthcare records of more than one million people living in east London between 1990 and 2018.
“More research is now needed for us to fully understand these links.. In the meantime, it is important that primary care practitioners are aware of these signs, and understand when symptoms of Parkinson’s disease may appear, so that patients can obtain a diagnosis in time, and that doctors can act quickly to help them manage the disease,” said Dr. Cristina Simonet, neurologist and lead author of the study.
In this study, the researchers also confirmed other primary symptoms of the disease already known, including the tremors and memory problemswhich can occur respectively up to ten and five years before the diagnosis of the pathology.
Parkinson’s: risk factors to spot
Through this study, the scientists also show that certain conditions are associated with an increased likelihood of developing Parkinson’s disease. This is the case of high blood pressure and you Type 2 diabetes.
“Through our ongoing PREDICT-PD research, we hope identify people at high risk for Parkinson’s disease even before obvious symptoms appearwhich means we might be doing more than improving patients’ quality of life, but possibly slowing down or curing Parkinson’s disease in the future,” says neurologist and co-author Dr Alastair Noyce. study.
PREDICT-PD is a large research project funded in the UK by Parkinson’s UK. It aims to identify people at high risk of developing the disease. Their findings might help all communities, especially through the development of new treatments who can improve support patients and therefore their daily quality of life.
