Madelyn,

Thank you so much for sharing this...in my mind this is huge to have someone within the "system" say that there really is no such thing as Idiopathic PD. I know Rick has thought this for quite some time and I jumped on board with the same idea last fall. It explains why people describe PD as "You see one person who has PD, then you have seen one person who has PD."

My hope is that this opens the door for a much needed redirection of focus in research; it may explain things like variable progression rates, variable treatment responses, plus differences in symptoms like some freeze, anxiety vs. depression. This also explains why lines are so fuzzy between PD and Dystonia or Essential Tremor. It also supports a researcher (now I cannot find the source) who said that the more genetic research they do the more the patient pool of those with Idiopathic PD will shrink. I think it was Ric who said this is junk diagnosis in the first place; this is affirmation.

My concern is will this ever translate into clinical benefit for us? I just read that it is now believed that 50% of young onset people are believed to be genetic PD...so why isn't anything happening to see that we are screened for this?

Laura