parkinsons disease
...therefore the treatment is palliative and symptomatic”. (Stokes) Parkinson’s disease affects approximately 1 in 500 people worldwide, affecting slightly more men than women and predominantly occurs in people over the age of 50(www). With Parkinson’s there are four main symptoms these are; “-Tremor -Rigidity -Bradykinesia -Postural instability. “ (Tidy’s physiotherapy) Patients also present many other symptoms alongside these such as loss of autonomic responses. This can be seen in a patient with an expressionless face and involuntary dribbling, the dribbling is cause because the muscles in the palate, throat and oesophagus are affected and become rigid and lose, they therefore lose the peristaltic movement, this impairs the ability to swallow saliva produced mainly by the parotiod glands because the saliva isn’t being swallowed there is more in the mouth and this overflows. The muscle sin the face are also rigid and lose they cannot therefore show the expressions usually there to help with emotions because they cannot control the movements in the face. Another symptom usually associated with Parkinson’s disease is the parkinsonian posture, this is when the patient is in standing there is a small amount of flexion in the joint this posture is usually described as simian and results in an overall flexed position with the hip and knees flexed along with rounded shoulders and the head tilted forwards. This flexion is caused because the agonist and antagonist are both contracting as the neurones are not sending the correct information to make the movements coordinate properly. This posture causes the patient to have their centre of gravity further over their feet and usual so their balance is much lover than usual, if they are moving because of the change in centre of gra...