Avi Medical helps you with Parkinson's

This chronic degenerative nerve disease affects up to one percent of all 60-year-olds. A number that grows steadily with age. However, while Parkinson's is still incurable, the associated symptoms can be treated well with medication. Provided the disease is diagnosed early .

Our experienced doctors are at your disposal for diagnosis and immediate therapy at all our locations .

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What is Parkinson's?

Popularly known only as "Parkinson's disease", the term refers to a variety of different clinical pictures. Medicine therefore knows the nerve disease as Parkinson's syndrome or symptom complex .

What all forms have in common is their origin, which lies in an as yet medically unexplained death of nerve cells in the brain. This is followed by a series of neuronal disorders. Motor inhibitions, such as muscle tremors, are the most common.

The best-known subtype of Parkinson's disease is idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). Other common manifestations are: 

• genetic forms of Parkinson's syndrome. Here, genetic defects lead to the destruction of nerve cells.
• Atypical Parkinson's syndromes. Here, nerve death occurs due to another nerve disease, e.g. Lewy body dementia.
• secondary Parkinson's syndromes. Triggered by drugs, accidents, tumours, poisoning, metabolic diseases or infections.

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At what point is it Parkinson's?

For a diagnosis of Parkinson's syndrome, the following four neuronal symptoms must be present at the same time. These are:  

• Akinesia, (stiffness of movement)
• Rigor (general muscle tension)
• Tremor at rest (tremor at rest) 
• upostural instability (tendency to fall when standing upright)

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What are the triggers of Parkinson's?

The trigger for all manifestations of the Parkinson's symptom complex is the death of nerve tissue in the substantia nigra. This area of the brain is closely connected to physical motor activity. If nerve cells die here, there is therefore an inhibition of the locomotor system. The anomaly also leads to a lack of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which intensifies the motor problems. A simultaneous imbalance of other neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine and serotonin also results in other symptoms that go beyond motoric limitations (such as dementia). 

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What are possible symptoms of Parkinson's?

The typical symptoms of Parkinson's disease are divided into motor symptoms and additional symptoms. The former include: 

• slower movements
• a typical stance. Consisting of: bent joints and a small-stepped, shuffling gait with the upper body slightly bent forward (therefore often falling forward) as a sign of instability.
• general stiffness of movement
• In later stages of the disease: writing becomes smaller, facial expressions decrease, problems swallowing

Additional complaints are: 

• Depression
• Sleep problems
• Constipation
• Olfactory disorder, up to and including loss of smell
• Muscle and joint pain, especially in the shoulder girdle
• in the later course: Joylessness, anxiety, dementia, excessive salivation, bladder emptying disorder.

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The treatment of Parkinson's at Avi Medical

At Avi Medical, comprehensive therapy for Parkinson's syndrome begins with early diagnosis. Medical measures on which this is based are: 

• Preparation of anamnesis
• Orienting neurological examinations of gait, certain movement sequences and reflexes 
• In addition, in hospital: MRI or CT to exclude other diseases.

The diagnosis is followed by drug treatment. This includes preparations which: 

• contain the precursor of dopamine and thus counteract a deficiency
• Function in a dopamine-like manner 
• inhibit the breakdown of dopamine (MAO inhibitors)
• alleviate muscle tremors (beta blockers)
• act against depression, dementia and psychotic episodes (antidepressants, antidementives and antipsychotics)

Accompanying the long-term intake of the preparations, regular laboratory checks are carried out to exclude the development of possible side effects at an early stage .

Drug treatment is also supported by the following measures : 

• Physiotherapy
• Speech therapy
• Occupational therapy
• Music and art therapy

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