A person with Parkinson’s disease, a degenerative disease that causes problems with movement and speech, often has characteristic signs and symptoms. These include a tremor at rest, rigidity, unstable posture, slow movements, hesitant speech, and a mask-like facial expression. But these are late symptoms of the disease – and often don’t appear until the disease is more advanced. Are there ways to pick up early Parkinson’s disease - so that treatment is more effective? Early Stages of Parkinson’s Disease: A Surprising Way to Detect This Disease Surprisingly, testing a person’s sense of smell could lead to an earlier diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that people with early Parkinson’s disease have difficulty identifying specific odors. People with early Parkinson’s disease have no problem smelling a lemon scent. In this study Parkinson’s patients were able to identify this scent better than a control group. … [Read more...]
