PLEASE, if you are not already involved, get involved...this is a possible diagnostic test for PD!!!

First objective diagnostic test for Parkinson’s, rolling out at 14 US medical centers

ProHealth.com., August 25, 2011

Researchers report on the first objective diagnostic test for Parkinson’s disease – a brain function imaging agent that allows SPECT scans to depict dopamine activity in the brain and will be trialed at 14 medical centers, which are enrolling now.

Parkinson’s disease, a type of nerve degeneration associated with loss of dopamine in the brain, involves gradual development of serious tremors, stiffness, and balance problems, and claims some 60,000 new cases each year in the US.

Unfortunately, diagnosis of PD has been notoriously hard to pin down versus other movement disorders such as essential tremor (which require different treatments). In fact, examinations early on can be inconclusive or lead to misdiagnosis of another movement disorder, and doctors have not even been able to say with certainty that those enrolled in Parkinson's studies have the disease, says Tanya Simuni, MD, a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Parkinson's Disease [serves as the primary teaching hospital for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine] and Movement Disorders Center. So diagnosis can take up to 6 years.