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| What's
new in Parkinson's disease |
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Researchers
and doctors are constantly working to improve
upon the treatments for Parkinson's disease. In
particular, as more information becomes available
about the condition and how it progresses, newer
therapies to better control the symptoms are being
developed.
When a new medication is tested for the treatment
of Parkinson's disease, the pharmaceutical manufacturer
will work with doctors and researchers to perform
a number of clinical trials. The clinical trial
comes at the end of a long and careful research
process and is an extremely important step in
furthering medical progress.
To be the most useful, clinical trials often require
the involvement of a large number of participants
and may last for several years. |
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| What
are the latest medicines for Parkinson's disease? |
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| Introduction
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Encouragingly,
treatments in the management of Parkinson's
disease are continually being improved. In
particular, as more information becomes available
about the condition and how it progresses,
newer therapies to better control the symptoms
are being developed
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Research
- Researchers are looking
for medications that target Parkinson's in
a completely different way to levodopa, either
by acting on different areas in the brain
and/or by replacing or modifying other chemicals
and neurotransmitters in the brain.
- In addition to
new symptomatic therapies, researchers are
trying to identify treatments that might
prevent or slow down the degeneration of
nerve cells (often called neurodegeneration),
although these are only in the very early
stages of identification and development.
- The symptoms of
Parkinson's disease only begin to appear
when the levels of dopamine in the brain
fall below about 20% of normal. Researchers
are therefore looking for ways to identify
people with Parkinson's before symptoms
begin to appear, and ways to stop or slow
down the degeneration in these individuals
before it takes hold.
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