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Every year about 10,000 Spaniards begin to develop the symptoms of Parkinson’s diseasehowever the fact that in Spain there is a delay of between 1 and 3 years in diagnosis, it is estimated that more than 50% of the new cases that have debuted in the last year are still undiagnosed.
“Despite the advances that have been made in this field, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is fundamentally clinical. When patients present some type of motor alteration -mainly taking into account the presence of tremor at rest, muscle rigidity, postural instability and/or bradykinesia, which is motor slowness and inability to perform delicate movements- do not dream of significant delays in diagnosis”, says Diego Santos, Coordinator of the Movement Disorders Study Group of the Spanish Society of Neurology.
However, it is known that five or even ten years before these motor symptoms, patients may present non-motor changes related to the disease, such as cognitive degeneration, depression, sleep disturbances, loss of smell, gastrointestinal disorders.
In addition, there are other symptoms, such as sleep or smell disorders, constipation, fatigue, which may even appear before problems with movement.
And, recently, research from Queen Mary University of London, the results of which were published in the journal JAMA Neurology, points to two new early warning signs: hearing loss and epilepsy.
In this sense, on the occasion of the World Parkinson’s Daythe Spanish Parkinson’s Federation (FEP) and its associations have launched the campaign The Other Face of Parkinson’s, with the aim of demystifying the erroneous image that exists about it, combating the social stigma, prejudices and stereotypes that surround it .
Parkinson’s is a disease commonly associated with the aging of the person and the belief that tremor is the symptom that most represents Parkinson’s. However, 1 in 5 people is under the age of 50 at the time of diagnosis, and 30% of people never develop tremor.
«With the La Otra Cara del Párkinson campaign we want to show the different faces of Parkinson’s disease, that of the young woman, the person who does not tremble or who continues to work despite the disease, or the caregivers. They are some of the most unknown faces of the disease, “explains Alicia Campos, director of the Spanish Federation of Parkinson’s.
The Other Face of Parkinson’s aims to change the image that is projected of the disease, showing the real faces of people who live with Parkinson’s at different moments in life or with different symptoms. «I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s because I had a sleep disorder in the REM phase, in addition to this I have no symptoms of movement, nor tremors in my hands, and that makes my closest circle surprised that I have this disease» , Explain Antonio Calderonone of the protagonists of the campaign.
Marta is another of the protagonists of the campaign, she is the visible face of young women in this campaign: «I’ve had Parkinson’s for 9 years and I’ve always wanted to be a mother.. Doctors have always told us that they did not know what could happen with Parkinson’s and pregnancy. I finally found a doctor who has been helping me all the way and now I have a beautiful and healthy one and a half year old boy.
The campaign also launches a message of empowerment towards the group of people with Parkinson’s, emphasizing the possibility of continuing to maintain a good quality of life after diagnosis. As in the case of Gladys, an Ecuadorian who has been living with the disease for 7 years and who explains that “with small adaptations and the support of my immediate environment, I have been able to continue working and leading my life.”
“Bearing in mind that 30-40% of patients with Parkinson’s do not have tremor and that in 40% of cases its first manifestation is depression, it can be difficult to identify it early and even difficult to differentiate from other Parkinsonian syndromes.” in the early stages of the disease. At the SEN we estimate that up to 24% of cases recently diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease actually have another parkinsonian syndrome”, says Diego Santos.
In any case, since Parkinson’s disease is a progressive degenerative disorder, regardless of the first symptoms, the motor symptoms end up becoming visible in almost all patients: motor fluctuations are present in up to 80% of patients before 5 years of the onset of symptoms and abnormal and involuntary movements before 7 years.
Aging is the main risk factor for the disease and its incidence and prevalence increase exponentially from the sixth decade of life, affecting up to 2% of those over 65 years of age and 4% of those over 80. For this reason, it is a disease that occurs more frequently in countries with higher life expectancy and one of the neurological disorders that has had the greatest growth in the world, both due to the increase in life expectancy and diagnostic advances. and therapeutic that has experienced this disease. For this reason, the SEN estimates that, in Spain, the number of people affected will triple in the next 30 years.
“In any case, although most cases occur after the sixth decade of life, it is not an exclusive disease of older people. Approximately 15% of the cases currently diagnosed in our country correspond to people under 50 years of age, which is what is called ‘Young-onset Parkinson’s’, concludes Diego Santos.
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