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Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease
Home | About Parkinson's Disease | Diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease
A Parkinson's disease specialist (usually a neurologist or geriatrician) is best qualified to make a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. He or she will probably want to:
- Talk to you and your relatives.
- Ask a series of questions that score how far your disease has progressed. The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) may be used. There are four parts covering your mental state, ability to carry out everyday tasks, motor function and complications of the disease and its treatment.
- Perform a physical examination. This is to look for signs of the disorder such as rigidity or tremor. Sometimes the diagnosis may be unclear and further examinations over time or additional tests may be needed.
- Refer you for a scan to see images of the inside of your brain. A positron emission tomography (PET) scanner can confirm a lack of dopamine but is not usually done in routine clinical practice. You will need an injection of a ‘tracer’, usually into your arm, which releases a contrast medium within body tissues for the scan to pick up. It is more common in clinical practice to perform a CAT or MRI scan of the brain. This is like having an X-Ray but is longer and requires sitting with your head scanned by a machine. It is painless except that an injection of a chemical to help see the structures may also be needed.
- See if your symptoms improve when you begin treatment with levodopa.
Your initial assessment will cover the physical, mental and social aspects of the disease. Although the most obvious effects of Parkinson’s disease are to do with movement, other symptoms (such as depression or memory loss) are also important in the overall impact of the condition. You may need to be assessed by more than one member of the healthcare team involved in the care of patients with Parkinson’s.
To be diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, you should have at least two of the following three symptoms affecting one side of the body:
- Tremor (shaking)
- Rigidity (stiff muscles)
- Bradykinesia (slow movement)
Some people have symptoms similar to Parkinson's disease, known as parkinsonism. Parkinsonism can be caused by different things, such as certain drugs, strokes, rare genetic disorders, obstruction of fluid in the brain, or head trauma. Your doctor will want to make sure that your symptoms are not being caused by something else before diagnosing Parkinson’s disease.
Drug therapy for the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease is begun when the symptoms become troublesome or cause disability.
