Understanding Parkinson's disease : a personal and professional view

1. The diagnostic conversation, diagnosis and prognosis of Parkinson's disease

Making the diagnosis

James Parkinson and the shaking palsy

Jean Charcot and better examinations

Checking diagnostic accuracy

Specificity and sensitivity

Prognosis

The Hoehn and Yahr scale

The unified Parkinson's disease rating scale

2. Pathology of Parkinson's disease

What part of the brain fails in Parkinson's disease?

Nerve cell connections

Chemical pathology of Parkinson's disease

3. Is there an epidemic of Parkinson's disease?

Epidemiology of Parkinson's disease

John Snow, the father of epidemiology

Koch's postulates

Investigating clusters of Parkinson's disease

Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Does smoking cause Parkinson's disease?

Causation versus association, the Hill criteria

Epidemiology of smoking and Parkinson's disease

Pesticides, head trauma, and Parkinson's disease

Parkinson's at the manor. 4. Causes of Parkinson's disease

Does an infection cause Parkinson's disease?

When prophecy fails

Do toxins cause Parkinson's disease? : an answer from the frozen addicts

Do genes cause Parkinson's disease?

All disease is genetic disease

5. Medications for Parkinson's disease

The herbal tradition

Herbal treatment of Parkinson's disease

Awakenings, L-Dopa therapy

Dopamine and schizophrenia, the dopamine receptor

Rational drug therapy, trying to prevent progression of Parkinson's disease

Coenzyme Q₁₀, another quest for neuroprotection

The challenges of taking L-dopa

6. Images of the brain, a picture of the brain is worth a thousand words

Imaging and diagnosis

Imaging and presymptomatic diagnosis

Imaging and disease progression. 7. A better model of Parkinson's disease

Dopamine nerve cells connect to many parts of the brain

Dopamine is one of many neurotransmitters that are important in Parkinson's disease

Patients with Parkinson's disease lose cells from many areas of the brain

8. Brain surgery for Parkinson's disease

Can destroying part of the brain be good?

"Brain transplantation," implanting new brain cells

Gene therapy

9. Living with Parkinson's disease

Mood, behavior, and Parkinson's disease

Can L-Dopa make people gamble?

Are Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease related?

Sleep and Parkinson's disease

Fall and injury prevention

10. Conclusions

What happens to brain cells to cause Parkinson's disease?

Living better with Parkinson's disease

The story of Parkinson's disease is not finished

Appendix. Reading about Parkinson's disease

Glossary