What Is the Prognosis for Parkinson's Disease?

Expect slow behavioral changes and gradual severe incapacity, such as failure to do daily routines (eat, walk or take a bath) from patients with a progressive disorder such as Parkinson's disease. Its cure is still elusive, so understanding and preparing for its slow, progressive changes is important.

What is Parkinson's Disease?

• Parkinson's disease (also called primary Parkinsonism) is a neurological condition resulting from an abnormal dopamine regulation in certain parts of the brain's basal ganglia. A normal brain contains equal neurotransmitters, while in the case of Parkinson's, the dopamine neurotransmitter is significantly lower (see Image1).

Rate of Mortality

• The rate of mortality for patients with Parkinson's disease varies from that of a normal person. Some studies have shown that starting from the onset of Parkinson's disease, functional disability and death happens in around five to seven years, depending on the treatment.

Motor Disability

• Parkinson's disease is a progressive disorder that eventually results to motor (functional) disability. We can't do anything to stop its progress, unless the normal dopamine regulation in the basal ganglia is restored.

Concurrent Disease

• Patients with concurrent diseases, such as progressive supranuclear palsy (another neurological disorder), progress faster and could lead to death. This would most likely occur within five years, depending on the concurrent disease.

Medicine Tolerance

• Patients will develop tolerance to medicine treatments over three to five years of time, depending on the rate and dose constantly given. The levodopa treatment (medicine for Parkinsonism) has shown reduced curative effect in patients who take it for a long period of time. Several reasons, including the patient's tolerance to levodopa, are being considered as contributing factors in this occurrence.

Post-encephalitic Parkinsonism

• Patients with post-encephalitic Parkinsonism have remarkably slow progression. Some patients can still function for periods of 30 years or more before their motor ability permanently halts.