Start the Late-Stage PD Wellness Prescription Early.

When James Parkinson first described the symptoms and findings of the disease we know today by his name on a small cohort of individuals that included random pedestrians fortuitously observed in the street, 1 Parkinson J An essay on the shaking palsy. Arch Neuro Psychiatr. 1922; 7: 683-710 Google Scholar not only was he impressed by postural abnormalities, slowness, and tremor, he specifically stated that this condition appeared to spare the mind. Symptomatic treatments 2 Goetz CG The history of Parkinson's disease: early clinical descriptions and neurological therapies. Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med. 2011; 1a008862 Crossref PubMed Scopus (235) Google Scholar came about over time in the same vein and focused on what we now refer to as “motor symptoms” of Parkinson's disease (PD), and set out scholarship and medical training curricula to embrace the notion of PD being defined by those motor symptoms, which were believed to solely drive disability in PD. The lasting mark that assumption left could not be fully corrected in hundreds of years that followed – for the most part to this day PD is classified as a neurological disorder (and not neuropsychiatric, endocrine, sleep, cognitive, etc disorder), a “movement disorder.” The sensational discovery of levodopa's nearly miraculous benefits in PD, 3 Cotzias GC Papavasi PS Gellene R Modification of Parkinsonism - chronic treatment with L-Dopa. New Engl J Med. 1969; 280: 337-345 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1092) Google Scholar restricted to motor symptoms, probably further delayed the more recent recognition of PD as a multisystem disorder.