The Differences Between Alzheimer’s And Parkinson’s
16 October, 2020
Do you know the differences between Alzheimers and Parkinsons? First of all, we must say that both diseases constitute two of the causes of dementia. Now, lets be a bit more specific. According to data from the WHO , dementia due to Alzheimers disease represents 60-70% of all cases of dementia in the world.
However, its important to keep in mind that theyre very different diseases. Additionally, we must make clear that having either condition doesnt always lead to the development of dementia . In this sense, we know that between 20-60% of people with Parkinsons disease end up developing dementia.
Buter et al. conducted a study that was published in the journal Neurology. It was conducted with 233 patients with Parkinsons disease. The researchers were able to observe that about 60% of them developed Parkinsons dementia in a period of 12 years.
So whats dementia? It refers to the set of symptoms that arise as a consequence of neurological damage or disease. These symptoms involve the loss or weakening of the mental faculties and mainly affect three different areas: cognitive , behavioral , and personality .
Prevalence Of Ad And Pd By Setting And Geography
The effect of setting was calculated only for AD. The prevalence rates were 3.14% for the urban population and 3.92% for the rural population. There was no significant difference between the settings .
Spatial distribution maps of prevalence of AD and PD over 60 years old were constructed from individual provinces across China . According to the geographical characteristics of China, the study locations were classified into seven geographic regions: East China, North China, Northeast China, Northwest China, South Central China, Central China, and Southwest China . Varied pooled prevalence rates were present in different geographic regions in China . The prevalence of AD was of the highest in Northwest China , and the lowest in South China . The prevalence of PD was of the highest in South China , and the lowest in Southwest China . Following standardization with the population of the respective regions, the overall pooled prevalence of AD and PD was 2.90% and 1.20% , respectively .
Figure 4. Spatial distribution of AD and PD prevalence rates across China in populations over 60 years old. The prevalence of AD. As a note, the age for Anhui, Gansu, and Chongqing was over 65 years. Age-standardized prevalence of AD. The prevalence of PD. As a note, the age for Hebei and Fujian was over 65 years. Age-standardized prevalence of PD. AD, Alzheimer’s disease. PD, Parkinson’s disease y, years old.
Table 3. Prevalence of AD and PD in different geographic regions of China.
What Is Lewy Body Dementia
Lewy body dementia is not a single disorder but rather a spectrum of closely-related disorders involving disturbances of cognition, behavior, sleep, movement and autonomic function.
In these progressive disorders, Lewy bodies build up in the brain. Lewy bodies in the brain stem cause a disruption in the production of chemical messengers called dopamine. Too little dopamine can cause parkinsonism, a clinical syndrome thats characterized by tremor, bradykinesia , rigidity and postural instability. Parkinsonism can be caused by Parkinsons disease itself as well as by other underlying neurological conditions such as LBD. These Lewy bodies are also found throughout other areas of the brain, including the cerebral cortex. The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is also depleted, causing disruption of perception, thinking and behavior.
A German neurologist, Friederich H. Lewy, first discovered the abnormal protein deposits in the early 1900s as he was conducting research on Parkinsons disease.
Also Check: What Treatments Are Available For Parkinson’s Disease
The Differences Between Alzheimers And Parkinsons
16 October, 2020
Do you know the differences between Alzheimers and Parkinsons? First of all, we must say that both diseases constitute two of the causes of dementia. Now, lets be a bit more specific. According to data from the WHO , dementia due to Alzheimers disease represents 60-70% of all cases of dementia in the world.
However, its important to keep in mind that theyre very different diseases. Additionally, we must make clear that having either condition doesnt always lead to the development of dementia . In this sense, we know that between 20-60% of people with Parkinsons disease end up developing dementia.
Buter et al. conducted a study that was published in the journal Neurology. It was conducted with 233 patients with Parkinsons disease. The researchers were able to observe that about 60% of them developed Parkinsons dementia in a period of 12 years.
So whats dementia? It refers to the set of symptoms that arise as a consequence of neurological damage or disease. These symptoms involve the loss or weakening of the mental faculties and mainly affect three different areas: cognitive , behavioral , and personality .
Recommended Reading: Lifestyle Changes For Parkinsons Disease
What Causes Parkinsons Disease Dementia
A chemical messenger in the brain called dopamine helps control and coordinate muscle movement. Over time, Parkinsons disease destroys the nerve cells that make dopamine.
Without this chemical messenger, the nerve cells cant properly relay instructions to the body. This causes a loss of muscle function and coordination. Researchers dont know why these brain cells disappear.
Parkinsons disease also causes dramatic changes in a part of your brain that controls movement.
Those with Parkinsons disease often experience motor symptoms as a preliminary sign of the condition. Tremors are one of the most common first symptoms of Parkinsons disease.
As the disease progresses and spreads in your brain, it can affect the parts of your brain responsible for mental functions, memory, and judgment.
Over time, your brain may not be able to use these areas as efficiently as it once did. As a result, you may begin experiencing symptoms of Parkinsons disease dementia.
You have an increased risk of developing Parkinsons disease dementia if:
Also Check: How To Be Diagnosed With Parkinson’s Disease
Don’t Smoke Lessen Alcohol Intake & Do Not Take Drugs
Even if you don’t drink a lot, alcohol has a cumulative effect on your brain. One blackout after a drinking binge can induce life long memory loss. Over time, smaller amounts of alcohol will lead to blackouts and soon you’ll have a ton of lost time even though you barely drank one bottle of beer.
Smoking negatively affects memory by reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain while repeated drug use kills your neurons and the rushes of dopamine reinforce drug dependence.
How Is Age Related To Pdd
Both PD and PDD are more common with increasing age. Most people with PD start having movement symptoms between ages 50 and 85, although some people have shown signs earlier. Up to 80% of people with PD eventually develop dementia. The average time from onset of movement problems to the development of dementia is about 10 years.
Recommended Reading: Best Stationary Bike For Parkinsons
You May Like: What Test Are Done To Diagnose Parkinson’s Disease
Living With Parkinson Disease
These measures can help you live well with Parkinson disease:
- An exercise routine can help keep muscles flexible and mobile. Exercise also releases natural brain chemicals that can improve emotional well-being.
- High protein meals can benefit your brain chemistry
- Physical, occupational, and speech therapy can help your ability to care for yourself and communicate with others
- If you or your family has questions about Parkinson disease, want information about treatment, or need to find support, you can contact the American Parkinson Disease Association.
What Is Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease was named by James Parkinson nearly 100 years before Dr. Alois Alzheimer described the type of dementia called Alzheimer’s disease .
This disease was colloquially referred to as the “shaking palsy” by James Parkinson. It is diagnosed in people who exhibit at least two of these three symptoms: slowed movements , muscle rigidity, and tremor even at rest.
Other recognized associated signs of Parkinson’s Disease include having an expressionless face, difficulty swallowing, cramped handwriting, trouble getting out of a chair, and a shuffling gait. Many of the symptoms are a result of nerve cell death in those that produce dopamine.
In addition to movement-related symptoms, Parkinson’s symptoms may be non-motor. Examples of non-motor symptoms include indifference, depression, constipation, sleep disorders, loss of the ability to smell, and cognitive impairment.
Also Check: Is Parkinson’s A Type Of Dementia
Are Parkinson’s And Alzheimers Related
Alzheimers disease and Parkinsons disease are both neurodegenerative diseases that are classified under the general term of dementia. Because of the vagueness of dementia as a medical label, many experts refer to it as a syndrome rather than a specific disease. Within the umbrella of dementia, these neurological disorders are often confused because of overlapping characteristics but Alzheimers and Parkinsons have unique symptoms, treatments and prognoses.
Alzheimers disease is the most common form of dementia. While many cases are diagnosed in patients over 65, individuals younger than 65 can be diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers. Signs of Alzheimers can be mild at first and include subtle forgetfulness or confusion, but symptoms will worsen over time and eventually interfere with daily tasks and activities.
Theres no cure for Alzheimers, but ongoing research has resulted in treatment options that may temporarily improve symptoms. Current treatment options include medications and physical exercise.
Prognoses vary depending on many factors, but a person with Alzheimer’s usually lives four to eight years after diagnosis. Although, some patients have lived as long as 20 years after finding out they have Alzheimer’s.
While Alzheimers and Parkinsons are both progressive neurological diseases, Parkinsons disease has more of an effect on physical function compared to the decline in cognitive function experienced by Alzheimers patients.
Strategy For Identifying Mechanism Based Ad/pd Subtypes
Before going into more detail, we briefly outline our general approach for identifying subtypes of sporadic AD and PD idiopathic patients : Following Tan et al. it is largely driven by the idea of a genetic sub-classification followed by a clinical, imaging based and biological characterization of patients in each cluster to test disease relevance.
Figure 1
Genetic commonalities between AD and PD can only be expected at the biological function level. Hence, the starting point of our work was a comprehensive mapping of the molecular disease landscape of AD and PD based on the scientific literature . The result was a set of 15 molecular mechanisms comprising 27 proteins that have been implicated in both diseases . We mapped 148 SNPs to these genes based on proximity as well as eQTL analysis, see details in Supplements. Using ADNI and PPMI as discovery cohorts , we calculated for each of the 15 molecular mechanism an aggregate burden score via sparse autoencoders and then used sparse non-negative matrix factorization to identify 4 distinct patient subgroups in AD and PD, see section. These subgroups were found independently in both diseases as well as in a merger of ADNI and PPMI patients .
Figure 2
Also Check: How Was Parkinson’s Disease Discovered
Will The Research Lead To A Breakthrough
Experts in these fields told Healthline this particular research does provide some encouragement.
James Hendrix, director of global science initiatives at the Alzheimers Association, said although the three diseases involve different proteins and have different effects on the brain, there is still some commonality.
He likened it to studying the motors of cars, airplanes, and boats. Although theyre different modes of transport, they still have similar engines.
Its valuable to have this cross talk. You dont want to work in a silo, Hendrix told Healthline. A discovery in one area can revolutionize another field.
George Yohrling, PhD, the senior director of mission and scientific affairs at the Huntingtons Disease Society of America, agrees.
Theyre looking at whats going on at the cellular level. What cellular machinery is being disrupted, he told Healthline.
It gets down to the cellular level, added Hendrix. If you can understand whats going wrong, you might be able to prevent that mechanism from happening.
A breakthrough is sorely needed for all these diseases.
Late last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the death rate from Alzheimers in the United States increased 55 percent between 1999 and 2014.
In addition, about 50,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Parkinsons every year. An estimated 500,000 Americans are living with the disease.
That would be wonderful, said Yohrling.
Mechanism Burden Scores Allow For Reproducible Subtyping Of Ad And Pd Patients
Using the data of 148 SNPs mapping to 15 common AD/PD disease mechanisms in 486 AD and 358 PD patients within our discovery cohorts, we developed an unsupervised machine learning approach to discover subgroups . This approach consisted of two basic steps: sparse autoencoding of the SNPs mapping to each of the 15 mechanisms, resulting into a profile of genetic burden scores consensus sparse non-negative matrix factorization to cluster patients and for identifying most discriminative mechanisms. Our method resulted in 4 subgroups in ADNI, PPMI as well as in a merger of ADNI and PPMI patients that were statistically stable and better discriminated than expected by pure chance details are described in the section and in the Supplementary Text . Interestingly, clusters found in the merged AD/PD cohort were all composed of a mixture of AD and PD patients . They were not identical to the ones identified in each disease individually, but showed a highly significant overlap in both cases -test). That means our clustering suggests the existence of certain commonalities between AD and PD patients on the level of SNP burden on specific mechanisms. We will discuss the question of disease relevance later.
Cluster 2 isamong other featuresstrongly associated with the genetic burden on IL1B, NLRP3, TP53,,,. Activation of IL1B by NLRP3 and TP53 play a role in the response of the immune system. Neuroinflammation is a common feature of AD and PD.
Recommended Reading: Can Parkinson’s Affect Breathing
Postponement Of Phase 2 Trial Data Of Ne3107 In Parkinson’s Disease Until Early Fall
As mentioned in the previous coverage, BioVie is conducting a Phase 2 study in Parkinson’s disease. This study is a double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2a study assessing safety, tolerability and potential pro-motoric impact in 40 Parkinson’s patients on carbidopa/levodopa over 28 days. It started in January 2022 and was supposed to be reported in the second semester of 2022. This date has now been postponed to the early fall.
This trial is essentially based on the same rationale as above in Alzheimer’s, and preclinical results in showing that NE3107 had a similar effect to levodopa in rodent and marmoset models.
Alzheimers And Parkinsons Disease: Similarities And Differences
James M. Ellison, MD, MPH
Swank Center for Memory Care and Geriatric Consultation, ChristianaCare Configure
Explore the similarities and differences between two common degenerative brain disorders.
Ron brings his 78-year-old wife, Sara, to the Memory Clinic, with a pressing concern. Sara is forgetting things more often even though her Parkinsons disease symptoms appear to be under good control with standard medications, healthy diet, and plenty of physical activity. She is losing her train of thought mid-sentence and she became very confused about where she was while driving the well-traveled route to her daughters home. Is she developing dementia? Is that a part of Parkinsons disease? Or is she developing Alzheimers disease? And what are the differences between Alzheimers and Parkinsons?
You May Like: What Are The Symptoms Of End Stage Parkinson’s Disease
What Causes Parkinson Disease
Parkinson disease arises from decreased dopamine production in the brain. The absence of dopamine makes it hard for the brain to coordinate muscle movements. Low dopamine also contributes to mood and cognitive problems later in the course of the disease. Experts don’t know what triggers the development of Parkinson disease most of the time. Early onset Parkinson disease is often inherited and is the result of certain gene defects.
The Recent Sec Filings
As results from the above share price chart over the past months, the sole press release that the company has reported over the past three months had no effect on the share price. I do mention above that, for me, this was the last step in finally de-risking the company’s asset for refractory ascites.
What did make the stock move, and quite considerably even, are recent SEC filings that can be seen to be bullish on the company’s future reportings. I also believe the company’s delays in reporting on the two Phase 2 trials in both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s may be related to that. Otherwise I see no reason why there would suddenly be a two-month delay in reporting both.
It results from a SEC filing of that same day that on July 15, 2022, BioVie has entered into a securities purchase agreement for the private placement of 3,636,364 shares at $1.65 per share, and a warrant to purchase 7,272,728 shares of common stock at $1.82 over the term of five years, for an aggregate purchase price of $6 million. Acuitas Group Holding is 100% owned by Terren Peizer, the chairman of BioVie’s board of directors. This transaction has led to the following share distribution within the board of directors.
BoD share distribution
Then, on August 31, 2022, another SEC filing showed that BioVie had entered into a sales agreement with Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. and B. Riley Securities, allowing BioVie at any time to sell shares of its common stock for an aggregate offering price of to $20,000,000.
Also Check: What Medications Are Used To Treat Parkinson’s Disease
Our Eyes May Provide Early Warning Signs Of Alzheimers And Parkinsons
Forget the soul it turns out the eyes may be the best window to the brain. Changes to the retina may foreshadow Alzheimers and Parkinsons diseases, and researchers say a picture of your eye could assess your future risk of neurodegenerative disease.
Pinched off from the brain during embryonic development, the retina contains layers of neurons that seem to experience neurodegenerative disease along with their cousins inside the skull. The key difference is that these retinal neurons, right against the jellylike vitreous of the eyeball, live and die where scientists can see them.
Early detection is sort of the holy grail, said Ron Petersen, director of Mayo Clinics Alzheimers Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. By the time a patient complains of memory problems or tremors, the machinery of neurodegenerative disease has been at work probably for years or decades.
Experts liken it to a cancer that only manifests symptoms at Stage 3 or 4. When patients begin to feel neurodegenerative diseases impact on their daily life, its almost too late for treatment.
Catching the warning signs of neurodegenerative disease earlier could give patients more time to plan for the future whether thats making caregiving arrangements, spending more time with family or writing the Great American novel.
Recommended Reading: What Are The Initial Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease