Question for People With Parkinson's
 

I just read that in more than one occupational study, teachers and healthcare workers showed a higher incidence of PD. As much as 2 to 3 times higher than other professions. I wanted to test that theory for anyone here who is willing. Thanks for voting :)

Also, any idea why this may be? I was theorizing that perhaps teachers and healthcare workers are more likely to get flu shots and perhaps repetitive exposure to the flu damages the substantia nigra for some people? Remember those patients documented in the movie Awakenings that suddenly had advanced Parkinsonian symptoms after suffering with encephilitis as a result of the flu pandemic.

opinion
 

[:grouphug: Thanks for asking. I think PD is more complicated than flu-shot related but no one really knows.

What I do know is that teaching (me) and nursing (daughter) are high stress professions. I was DX almost 3 yrs ago and find that stress exacerbates my tremors.Exercise and relaxation helps reduce tremors :D Just a thought
Hugs Don

Thanks for sharing driel00 :)

I agree it is more complicated than just being caused by a flu shot, however flu shots, like pesticides, could be ONE cause.

Though teaching and nursing are high stress jobs, so is managing a restaurant, stockbrocking, being a chef or a politician.... It is odd that teaching and healthcare stand out dont you think?

CAN you post a link. could be that those two groups just do a better job of getting counted. i'm not sure if every pd case gets reported and to what data gathering bodies. sweden tracks it's citizens from grave to cradle. we don't.

other professions
 

I've read several places that computer programmers also have a higher incidence of PD.

We have hypothesized that the professions that are linked to a higher PD rate (teacher, clergy, software, I've never read about the nursing but it makes sense) is because very generally speaking, people in these professions are very compassionate, caring, and sensitive. I know there are lots of exceptions and we've all known or had a teacher or pastor who was a jerk, and of course Hitler was not known for his compassion and I've read he had PD, so like I said, it's just midnight musings.

exposure
 

These professions [teaching, healthcare] are around many germs and bacteria. it could be a virus that sends the system on a downhill slide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGT0r-udstQ

Click on the above link to watch a two minute clip on a woman who developed dystonia overnight from a flu shot. I agree that there MUST be a reason for those kinds of numbers, though there is no way of knowing what that reason is...

One thing is for sure. There is more that one contributing factor to getting PD.

many people believe this woman perpetuated a hoax.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2N1I...eature=related

i for one carefully check and double check everything i post and state whether it is opinion or fact and i would think a health care professional would be even more careful.

as far as flu increasing your chances of getting p.d., it appears there might be a link but there is no conclusive evidence that flu vaccines increases your chances of getting p.d., in fact it might decrease it by keeping you from getting the flu.

as far as the connection between the flu and the "awakenings" patients, my interpretation is they suffered from encephalitis, not the flu. maybe the flu made them more succeptible. i admittedly haven't done a lot of research so i may be wrong.

"An epidemic of von Economo's encephalopathy in parts of Europe and in North America was recorded from about 1915 to 1926. A couple of decades later some of the survivors of the event descended into a catatonic state which Sacks correctly identified as Parkinsonian. "

"The overlap of the initial outbreak with the 1918 Spanish flu led some people to conclude infection with that virulent virus was the trigger for the illness"

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories...insons_090810/
------------------------

THIS paper concluded that the incidence of pd was not higher in teachers or nurses and discusses why the earlier research might have erroneously come to that conclusion. i didn't do an exhaustive literature search so i'll gladly accept other research citations.

http://occmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/57/1/50.full

* Oxford Journals
* Medicine
* Occupational Medicine
* Volume57, Issue1
* Pp. 50-56.

* Expand+

Occupational titles as risk factors for Parkinson's disease

1. Smita ****,
2. Sean Semple,
3. Finlay **** and
4. Anthony Seaton

+ Author Affiliations

1.
Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Aberdeen Medical School, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, UK

1. Correspondence to: Finlay ****, Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Aberdeen Medical School, Foresterhill, Aberdeen, UK. Tel: +44 1224 558191; e-mail: f.****@abdn.ac.uk

Tsui et al. [8] investigated the associations between occupation and PD in a case–control study set in Vancouver, Canada. They found that PD was positively associated with employment in teaching or health care. Information on the occupations of the cases was obtained from them or their family members but job data on the controls were drawn from the 1991 Canadian census. The reliability of proxy data had been questioned in some previous studies [9,10]. This Canadian study had its origins in the observation that both teachers and health care workers appeared to be over-represented among PD sufferers attending the Movement Disorders Clinic at the University of British Columbia Hospital, Vancouver. The authors hypothesized that their observation might be due to a link between high exposure to respiratory infections in these occupations and PD. An alternative explanation of this finding is that these groups may have better access to health care than the general population, so confounding the association. One criticism of this study is that information on occupation was limited and did not include all jobs held during a working lifetime.

As in the study by Kirkey et al. [16], we recorded occupational histories including all jobs held for a period of 6 months or more. Although we used a slightly different system for the industry classification from that used by Kirkey et al. [16], the occupational title classification was similar. This allows comparisons to be drawn between our findings and those of Kirkey et al. [16]. The study by Park et al. [17] is not directly comparable as they used the Korean national classification systems for industry and occupational titles.

Except for work in the processing category, we did not find significant associations between occupational or industrial categories and the risk of developing PD.

You're on the right track...
 

Welcome YogaLife,

Glad to see a curious newbie posting on the forum but sorry to read that your hub has PD. I am fairly new here and YO. You'll find that we're sometimes fairly quiet out here and at other times quite spirited and full of debate; you will find that always, we are seeking answers and asking the questions no one wants to ask at the neuro's office.

First, before we start tossing lots of research citations back and forth, it is worth keeping in mind that very little epidemiological research has ever been conducted on PWP. That means the CDC and WHO have not thought it was important enough to collect stats. So whenever you see a number of how many people have PD or how many will have, look at where the author gets those numbers. Nine out of ten times no reference is provided. Our Congress currently passed legislation to start collecting data in a National Disease Registry. See the Parkinson Action Network website for more info.(PAN

Given this sad state of affairs and that we have usually small sample sizes to begin within in researching. Given that we can usually always find at least one study to negate or contradict five others, I take very little of what I read in epidemiological aspects of PD as valid or reliable research. I look at it as if there are at least 10 people experiencing something or there is widespread (meaning the literature supports it outside just the US) correlations made between say occupations and PD or air pollution and PD, then I conclude that there might be something there there. Not very scientific but then neither is taking a study based on dubious base numbers statistically reliable.

You'll find the same results when researching PD as an occupational hazard of welding. Welding produces manganese particulates that very easily pass through the Blood Brain Barrier. There are reams of research proving that Manganese exposure can cause Parkinsonism. Usually reversible if caught early enough, there are many studies that then report manganese exposure in workplace (aka welding) as a risk factor. Then you get one report saying "no" and supposedly it negates 10 others. Further, manganese poisoning as an origin of Parkinsonism is so widely accepted as truth, that I daresay you can locate one text book on PD or Movement Disorders that quote the few dissenting articles.

One other interesting thing on manganese. We breathe in manganese particulates every day in the form of MMT. It is a chemical added to gasoline as anti-knock matter that replaced lead. It was banned in 1977 but the Afton Corp. fought it (in the meantime conducting no studies on effects of chronic exposure)and it has been used again since 1995 despite the EPA's supposed regulation of such stuff (they meekly encourage Afton to conduct studies). Meanwhile studies are starting to show correlation between air pollution and prevalence of PD in highly polluted areas like Mexico City; even in the US there is a recent study that shows PD more prevalent in urban areas. Researchers at University of California (Riverside, I think) have a special lab dedicated to studying neurological effects MMT, so the environmental part of PD that always, always mentions only pesticides as a causative are giving us a very limited perspective.

You mentioned that there is a lot we do not know. I will say I think we lack very little in knowing, just the opposite; so much research continues to be generated that it repeats. I think the most answers are already out there, but you have no one group or person to meta -analyze the data we already have. We have no one attempting to put the pieces together.

You'll find some of us here have our pet theories (backed by research) that we explore and share. Obviously, MMT is one of mine. I also firmly believe that viral infection is a main causative of PD and that what we have is auto immune based. Yet we continue on searching for some sort of one big common cause which is pointless because it is now acknowledged that PD is most likely the end result of several different things; like physical trauma, viral or bacterial infection, or toxin exposure, that interact with a genetic predisposition. The important thing is that we now generally know what is happening at the molecular level and a vaccine is now being developed that sat the very least may halt progression of the disease. Google Affiris, U Nebraska vaccine, or Biogen. I am hopeful that we are as close to a cure as we'll ever know. Bummer for those people who think a vaccine gave them PD.

Laura