Diego Santos, coordinator of the Movement Disorders Study Group of the Spanish Society of Neurology.
Parkinson’s disease is the pathology neurodegenerative with the highest incidence worldwide, following Alzheimer’s In Spain, and according to data from the Spanish Society of Neurology (ITS), some 150,000 people suffer from this disease and society estimates that the number of affected I know will triple in the next 30 years. A figure that warns Diego Santoscoordinator of the Movement Disorders Study Group of the SEN, who assures Medical Writing that “it is a complex disease and, for a better approach, it must be accredited units specialized in movement disorders“.
Units that “some Spanish hospitals already have and carry out subspecialized neurologists“, according to Santos. In addition, the expert admits that from the SEN “this need has already been projected for accredit the units and the first step has been to carry out a clinical unit accreditation manual through the SEN Accreditation Committee”.
For Santos, the main objective is “improve care of these patients and the ideal would be a multidisciplinary management of Parkinson’s disease carried out by multidisciplinary teams“. In them, the neurologist and other specialists would be involved, such as psychiatrists, neuropsychologists, endocrinologists specialized in nutrition, etc.” Santos assures that “carrying out this type of care in units specialized in movement disorders would allow the patient to receive complementary therapies that, on many occasions, the National system of health (SNS) does not offer them, such as Speech Therapy, Physiotherapy or Occupational Therapy”.
Santos admits that there is a “great variability Regarding the evolution and manifestation of the Parkinson’s disease from one patient to another and, therefore, patients need an individualized approach, not only in terms of treatment, but also in terms of complementary therapies”.
More than half of new cases this year, undiagnosed
The aging is the principal risk factor of suffering from the disease and its incidence and prevalence increase exponentially from the sixth decade of life, affecting up to 2 percent of those over 65 years of age and 4 percent of those over 80. In this sense, Santos emphasizes that “in any case, although the majority of cases arise from the sixth decade of lifeIt is not a disease exclusive to older people. Approximately 15 percent of the cases currently diagnosed in our country correspond to people under 50 years of age, which is what is called ‘Young-onset Parkinson’s’”.
According to the incidence of this disease, each year regarding 10,000 Spaniards begin to develop symptoms of this diseaseHowever, the fact that in Spain there is a delay of between 1 and 3 years in the diagnosis, makes the SEN estimate that more than 50 percent of new cases who have debuted in the last year are still undiagnosed.
Despite the advances that have been made in this field, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is essentially clinical. However, today we know that five, or even ten years before these motor symptomspatients may present non-motor disturbances related to the disease, such as cognitive degeneration, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of smell, gastrointestinal disorders,… And a recent study published in JAMA Neurologyhas just pointed to two new non-motor symptoms: Hearing loss and the epilepsy”, says Santos.
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“Up to 24% of cases diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease actually have another parkinsonian syndrome” |
On the other hand, Santos affirms that it is necessary change care in consultations Regarding movement disorders: “In the SEN we estimate that up to 24% of cases recently diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease actually have other parkinsonian syndrome. Therefore, it is necessary to bet on the development of a greater number of consultations specialized in movement disorders in all hospital centers to improve these figures”.
Today there is a great variability of available resources for the treatment of the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, which include different pharmacological approaches Y non pharmacological. However, there is still no cure for this disease and current pharmacological therapies, although they are capable of improving symptoms in the initial phases with clear benefits in autonomy for the development of activities of daily living and quality of life in the vast majority of patients, become less effective as the disease progresses.
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