The 04/11/2016
World Parkinson’s Day, Monday April 11, is an opportunity to rediscover a disease that affects more than 150,000 people today in France and 4 million worldwide.
A poorly understood disease?
Parkinson’s disease is caused by the progressive degeneration of certain brain cells. 25,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in France.
It manifests itself as a tremor, but not only: ” There are two main categories of signs: motor symptoms, including the well-known resting tremor, slowness of movement (bradykinesia) and stiffness, but the disease will also manifest with non-motor symptoms. », Explains Prof. Luc Defebvre, neurologist at the CHRU de Lille, at Figaro.
Symptoms that we do not see, such as sleep, hypersalivation, pain, constipation, depression, or even cognitive disorders, and which nevertheless make people with this disease suffer greatly. According to the association France Parkinson, patients very often have the impression of not being understood by those around them who do not perceive these symptoms.
What treatments?
To date, there is no treatment that can prevent or cure Parkinson’s disease, it is nevertheless possible to reduce the symptoms by the use of drugs. The role of these drugs is to compensate for the lack of dopamine in the brain, which is essential for controlling body movements. The standard treatment is levodopa, or L-dopa, which is known to cause abnormal, involuntary and uncontrolled movements over time.
New hope: a team from the Lille hospital center revealed that, in 2014, it had discovered a new treatment based on deferiprone. This molecule could redistribute iron from iron-overloaded areas that are peculiar to the disease to areas that need iron. If the results of their research are encouraging, new trials are underway to use this molecule, which would have positive effects on motor symptoms.
Read also: Parkinson’s disease: where is the research?
Photo Credit: Ocskay Mark – ShutterStock
