What we knew about PD in 1961
 

Please read the following paper which summarises status of knowledge about PD more than 50 years ago. INMHO I see little progress made since that time :(
What do you think?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...00965-0032.pdf

Hi Imark,
I have the attention span of a two yr old so only skimmed through the article so forgive me if I've got this wrong.
Levodopa was rising in popularity for PWP during this time.
Before this drug came along we PWP were most definitely up the creek without a paddle.
I'm very glad I wasn't around before then.
Having been able to function considerably better with levodopa after a long period of telling myself "I did not need it" and then when the effects of that weren't so great have DBS and be able to function fairly well again I consider myself in many ways to be very fortunate.
So at the risk of being seen as too much of an optimist I think we have come a long way from the dim dark days of 50 yrs ago.

its the money that bothers me
 

and the lack of sharing. we may not be any further ahead if all researchers were not competing like cutthroats or if we knew whose greed made it so expensive, but here's another example:


http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/m...rma/2011-09-02

Are we doingg better?
 

Thank you M.U. and Paula.
I am not sure that we are doing better than PD patients 50 years ago (this is a subject to a very interesting study that will never be done for obvious reasons).
I think that the paper I sighted is remarkable because it contains most of the present theories about this illness and moreover, it considers that PD is caused by imbalance of neurotransmitters such as dopamine/acetycholin and serotonin/histamin systems and does not fall into a one dimensional hole of dopamine insufficiency.

This is an interesting read. Certainly we haven't come far enough. There have been studies showing that longevity for PWP increased by about five years when levedopa/carbidopa came on the market in the late 1960s/1970s but there hasn't been another advance like this since then, and that is depressing. In addition, the prevalence of PD is increasing and more people are reported to be dying of PD. While the latter is attributable at least in part to changes in how death certificates are
written, the point is that there are now more people diagnosed with PD which means that those of us with PD will die with PD. More importantly, we aren't going to get any better without a more comprehensive understanding of PD.

ok i reread it
 

imad, i was guilty of skimming it the first time too altho i knew you were correct about it being barely past the 60s today. i read it this morning word for word and it couldn't be more clear.

they concluded and asked for more study on two systems that are the basis of why i take the drugs i take.

dopamine/acetylcholine system
serotonin/ histamine system

that's why i take nortriptyline and amantadine which have anitcholinergic properties and boost norepinephrine for serotonin [nortriptyline does the latter]. i take a ton of sinemet tho, but up to about 5:00 pm then i can back off from the build up and often get by with mostly nortriptyline and 3 xanax - 1 at dinner time and 2 at bedtime. all low dose and take only 25/100 sinemet. it's a lot of med, but then i've had it for more than 20 years. what is saving me now?

the dreaded words i used to despise; vigorous exercise. now i do them with 5lb weights around my ankles. all aquatic, 5 hours per week. i have a recumbent bicycle which i am guilty of not using but it has not come to the point where i am hanging laundry on it to dry. i look at it tho.

adding: i loved the last statement about subtypes and mental illness.

Interesting to read this, and the thread too. Paula, agree with you on that statement!

So we have levodopa now, and things that mimic it, and they give us more mobility. So is it the drugs that give us extra years, or that we move more? And delaying medication, and exercising more, and using alternative ways of living with PD, where to they fit in?

I was going to say that we have better quality of life, and to some degree that is true, but our meds come with high price tags - who has not experienced the fogginess of being medicated and longed to feel the clarity of the person they are under the medication. Or wearing off/wearing on, and the time that goes on that. Dyskinesias, managing different combinations. The whole complicated nature of dealing with it. So instead of a long slow slide into immobility and lack of communication we have something different to deal with. We are certainly more mobile, and for longer, but less afflicted?

Together with Laura's post today on tiny damage to brain tissue, I guess there are still as many questions 50 years on, and it seems less likely than ever that there will be a single cure, though with the increasing cases of ever younger people it will be just as important to find preventatives.