Abstract
It is reasonably well established that prior to the motor phase of classical Parkinson's
disease (PD) there is a prodromal period of several years duration. Once typical motor
features appear, the disease continues up to 20 years depending on multiple variables.
The clinical features of the prodromal and motor phases may be correlated with pathological
changes in the central and autonomic nervous systems to allow a sequential plan of
disease progression. We present a ‘best guess’ for a typical individual presenting
with PD in their sixties and speculate that the disease will last approximately 40
years from the earliest non-motor features to death. Appreciation of this concept
may allow better strategies for slowing or halting disease progression.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
August 26,
2009
Received in revised form:
August 24,
2009
Received:
May 16,
2009
Footnotes
☆The review of this paper was entirely handled by the Co-Editor-in-Chief, Zbigniew Wszolek.
☆☆Financial disclosure: This work was made possible in part by funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and Hilde-Ulrichs Foundation (Florstadt-Staden, Germany).
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
