Parkinson's Disease: A Case Study

Chapter 2

DISCUSSION

1) What is Parkinson’s Disease?

Parkinson’s disease according to Parkinson’s disease foundation (PDF) is a chronic and progressive movement disorder meaning the symptoms worsen overtime and nearly one million people living with Parkinson 's disease lives in U.S,. The cause is unknown, and although there is presently no cure, treatment to manage its symptoms, through surgery and medications are advised. The disease is known not to be lethal rather it is known to affect a person’s life time movement to the point of malfunction of the whole system that limits them to move as they please. Proven that this disease cause cannot be traced or the reason behind the existence of this disease is unknown, it can be said that Parkinson’s

The symptoms often show that these changes occur visibly in the patients thus identification of Parkinson’s disease would be easily detected. Despite these given symptom organizations such as Parkinson’s Disease Foundation (2015) classify Parkinson’s disease through its four major symptoms which are tremor, bradykinesia, rigidity, and Postural instability. Tremor or resting tremor is classified as the trembling of the hands or feet occurring when they are at rest that start with one part, in time, starts at the other one according to Leiberman (2003). This trembling often occurs to the first stage of Parkinson Disease in a mild instance such as the trembling stops as the person moves or stretches it out. While stated by Help Guide (N.D) bradykinesia manifests as slowness in voluntary movement such as standing up, walking, and sitting down. This happens because of delayed transmission signals from the brain to the muscles. This may lead to difficulty initiating walking, but in more severe cases can cause “freezing episodes” once the person with Parkinson’s disease begun walking. Since a patient undergoes bradykinesia difficulty in doing work alone is a challenge for patients, in mild cases of this symptom a daily task can be done alone but when a patient reach the severe case of bradykinesia doing daily task alone is impossible, assistance is hence needed for patient not just to continue daily task but as to live everyday is needed. Postural instability is classified when a person suffers from impaired or lost reflexes that can make it difficult to adjust posture to maintain balance (MedicineNet, 2015). A person is classified through the