An Overview of Parkinson Disease and Movement Disorders

In North America, approximately 1 million people are affected by idiopathic Parkinson disease (PD), with the only risk factor being age and no identifying cause.

Jennifer Hui, MD, spoke about idiopathic PD and other movement disorders during her session at the 2022 Practical Updates in Primary Care Virtual Series. Dr Hui is an associate professor of clinical neurology in the Division of Movement Disorders at the Keck School of Medicine at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California.

During her presentation, Dr Hui broke down Parkinsonism, primarily focusing on idiopathic PD, its features, and symptoms. Additionally, Dr Hui included a video of a patient with PD to demonstrate how clinicians can assess movements when a patient presents with possible symptoms of the disease.

Dr Hui went on to describe the treatment of PD, which “hinges around the dopamine replacement,” she explains. She continued speaking about the most effective or “gold standard” medication for the treatment of motor symptoms called Levodopa. Dr Hui noted that, although it is a widely used medication, it does not treat all the symptoms of PD. Further, she highlighted the various categories of medications, how they treat PD, and their possible adverse effects.

Additionally, Dr Hui went over the different types of movement disorders, providing video examples of each disorder to depict how the symptoms are presented. She began her presentation with an explanation of each, how it affects the person’s body, and diagnostic examples.

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Reference:

Hui JS. Overview of Parkinson’s disease & other movement disorders. Talk presented at: Practical Updates in Primary Care 2022 Virtual Series; Virtual.