Early Signs Of Parkinson`s Disease
Human nature being what it is, most individuals do not fully appreciate the blessings of sound physical function until the function has been lost. No more profound realization of this truth is visited upon mortal man, perhaps, than that which gradually becomes apparent to the Parkinsonian patient as, one by one, he loses his physical faculties.
Thus the prospects for the average victim of Parkinson's Disease, until very recently, have been gloomy indeed. Most of its victims down through the ages gradually became shakier and more rigid until the disease rendered them completely helpless and bedridden. Inasmuch as the disease is not, as a rule, a fatal one, such patients often existed in this condition for years and even decades, before death from some other cause mercifully released them.
Frequently the earliest symptom of Parkinson's Disease is a slight, transitory quivering of the individual's right arm and hand, if he or she happens to be a right-handed individual. If he is left-handed, the earliest sign of disability is
The onset of symptoms may be rapid and generalized in Parkinson's Disease resulting from severe encephalitis likely to occur—though this is by no means the rule—on the left side. Thus the disease, with diabolical irony, not only impairs the function of a limb, but often selects that part which is most used by its possessor.
At first, the average patient's attitude is that "this can't happen to me." The quivering, the slight stiffness, the almost imperceptible sluggishness of voluntary motion in the affected part are ascribed to fatigue by the optimistic victim, or perhaps to some indiscretion, dietary or otherwise. 'Til be all right tomorrow," the patient assures himself.
He might be all right tomorrow. So gradual are the inroads of the disorder that "bad" days are generously interspersed with "good" ones.
But sooner or later the day after tomorrow arrives. The quivering, the stiffness, perhaps an annoying and painful cramping of the muscles return and perhaps linger with a little more persistence. The patient thinks back. "Was I out too late last night? No, I wasn't ... I went to bed early. I ate my usual dinner. I didn't work especially hard yesterday." His mouth becomes dry and he gulps.
He knits his brow and thinks. The realization gradually sickens him—he did nothing yesterday that could account for these symptoms! His heart quickens; a panicky feeling grips him. Then it ebbs. "Shucks, there's nothing the matter with me. Why, I must have worked too hard the day before yesterday. That's it—I remember! That was the day I took that long walk all over the city. No wonder my leg is shaking! It's a wonder it doesn't shake more. Nobody could have walked as far as I did that day without getting some after effects!"
The panic of the moment before yields to a flush of actual joy. The symptoms have been explained, and so simply. "Just the result of overdoing things—just a temporary situation. Why, it's really wonderful to be alive!" The patient, his soliloquy attaining an eminently satisfactory conclusion, promptly rushes about his business and likely as not has a good day.
What the patient does not know is that this soliloquy is probably but the first of a long series to come, similar except for one tragic difference: their respective conclusions. Like steps leading down into a dark cellar, each conclusion will be gloomier as the patient, despite his strenuous rationalizations, is forced to accept the fact that his symptoms are not phantoms but facts.
The so-called good days will now become rarer, and the days when the symptoms reach a level of conscious awareness will predominate. In the intervals there will be "in between" days when the symptoms are present but not particularly annoying. Such days as these—and the actual "good" days when the symptoms are only barely apparent—serve to stir up fresh bursts of optimism in the patient's mind—optimism that is inevitably superseded by an equivalent measure of despair as the quiverings and stiffness return.