Parkinson's can be a very devastating disorder. Not just for the people who experience it, but also their relatives. It is a draining disorder that takes its course on a person, and when it is done, the person is typically reduced to a shell of himself.

This can be a difficult thing to think about, but it's something that thousands, if not millions of people must think about.

The final stages of Parkinson's are among the most difficult of the entire ordeal. Before we can talk about the last stages, we'll first talk a bit about what Parkinson's is.

What is Parkinson's?

Parkinson's isn't a cancer or something that is, as far as medical researchers know, passed on from generation to generation. It is a brain disorder in which several areas of the body are affected.

People who have Parkinson's may first have subtle symptoms of the disorder before it turns into a full blown problem.

What are the Symptoms?

Parkinsons Dementia is a severe effect of Parkinson’s which can range from mild cognitive impairment to severe dementia. We hear a lot about both Parkinson’s Disease and Dementias but who gets Parkinsons Dementia?

Currently only about 3% of the population develop Parkinson’s disease. And about 90% of all diagnosed cases are in people over the age of 60 and risk of the more serious Parkinsons Dementia increases with each year after the age of 60 up until the age of 75 when it takes a sharp drop.

But here is the scary news – they expect that number to double from 3% to 6% in the next few years. So what are the risk factors?

Gender

If you’re a man you have a twice the risk of developing Parkinsons Dementia than women. Scientists think that it may be estrogen that women have in their bodies that protects them from the chemical changes that Parkinson’s causes.

Statistics on Parkinson’s Disease can be overpowering. Since misdiagnoses are so common, many of the organizations that frequently report health statistics warn that the predominance of Parkinson’s may be as much as 40% higher than is being reported. In addition, since Parkinson’s isn’t an infectious disease, it doesn’t have to be reported, which further hinders efforts to gather reliable data.

In general, it is acceded that Parkinson’s is one of the most common neurological diseases affecting adults over the age of 65. Diagnoses of Parkinson’s Disease in adults between the ages of 40 and 65 has increased in the past few decades, though as yet there is no attributable cause. Because of its relatively protracted progress, a person diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease may live another 40-50 years, with increasing disability.

- One person in every 200 will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in their lifetime.
- One out of every 100 people over 60 in the United States will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

Even with Parkinson's disease having quite idiosyncratic features, it is a relatively difficult disease to diagnose, especially in its early stages. There are no specific tests which doctors can do to positively a diagnose Parkinson's disease and in particular in it's early stages it can be mistaken for other diseases. If and when this happens, it delays or prevents the proper treatment being given in the quickest possible time.

The problem with diagnosing Parkinson's disease accurately is simply that the symptoms are not always as conclusive as doctors would like them to be. Indeed indications are that up to 25% of those people presently being treated for Parkinson's disease could have been wrongly diagnosed and are therefore receiving wrong treatment.

Once your neurologist has made a positive diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, he or she will consider treatments for the disease based on the apparent stage of Parkinson’s present. The five stages of Parkinson’s disease offered by the Hoehn and Yahr scale are distinguished by the degree of disability and the severity of the symptoms.

Stage I Unilateral disease

In Stage I Parkinson’s disease, the symptoms and movement disorders are restricted to one side of the body. It’s a relatively early stage of the disease, and for most people, it may last for years. One of the most promising treatments in Stage I of Parkinson’s is neuroprotective treatment – assorted strategies that may shield the nervous system from further damage. Among the drugs that have been explored for their neuroprotective benefits are vitamin E, which has so far proved ineffective, and a selective MAO-B inhibitor called Rasigiline, which has shown promise in preliminary tests.

Stage II Bilateral Disease