Parkinson’s disease (PD) is chronic and progressive movement disorder, meaning that symptoms continue and worsen over time. Nearly one million people in the US are living with Parkinson’s disease. Are you concerned that your mom may have PD?
The Doctor’s Visit:
I watched as Dr. Lyman attached two devices, which he called accelerometers, to my mom’s arms.
“Okay, now walk across the room,” he instructed.
“What will those do?” I asked, referring to the accelerometers. We had made the doctor’s appointment last week, after Mom began experiencing some unusual symptoms. Her hands had acquired mild, but continuous tremors, and she was having muscle aches. Worried, and hoping fervently that she was not developing Parkinson’s as her mother had before her, we had called the doctor for an appointment.
“The accelerometers measure the speed and frequency of arm swings,” the doctor explained. ”Doctors have known for a long time that people with Parkinson’s swing their arms less when they walk than other people do, but there have been some new studies at Penn State that indicate that people with Parkinson’s disease have asymmetric arm swings. In other words, they tend to swing one arm less than they swing another. This symptom usually shows up early in the progression of the disease, so I can use the data from the accelerometers to aid in a diagnosis.”
I watched as Mom crossed the room. Her arm swings look approximately equal to me, but obviously I knew that the accelerometers might show differences that I couldn’t detect. I took a deep breath.
“Are there any other tests that you can do, just to be sure?” I asked.
“Certainly,” the doctor replied. “We’ll also do a smell test. Smell is commonly one of the first senses affected by Parkinson’s, but because other factors can also affect it, the smell test isn’t quite as definitive as the arm swing test. We’ll run a few tests to check for other causes as well.”
Mom and I waited impatiently for the results of the tests. When they came back, we were relieved to discover that not only was her sense of smell still incredibly sharp, but her arm swings were also symmetric! Dr. Lyman told us to remain on the alert for other symptoms in the future, such as slow or infrequent blinking, constipation, difficulty balancing while walking, stiff muscles, and slowed speech, but confirmed that Mom’s current tremors were the result of a reaction to her medication. We were so relieved!
Related articles
- Early Sign Of Parkinson’s Disease Signaled by Increased Arm Swing Asymmetry (medicalnewstoday.com)
- Is Parkinson’s disease hereditary? (zocdoc.com)
- Parkinson’s Disease (PD) Breakthrough Stem Cell Treatment at Integra Medical Center (prweb.com)
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