World Parkinson's Disease Day 2025 is on Friday, April 11, 2025: Cure for Parkinson's Disease?

Friday, April 11, 2025 is World Parkinson's Disease Day 2025. Parkinson's Disease Facts‎ What is Parkinson's Disease? Learn About Symptoms, Causes and More.

Brian, I'm sorry about your Dad.

While there is no predicting the progression of the disease, there may be ways that will help slow your father's progression.

One Parkinson's Disease medication on the market for only a few years is an MAO-B inhibitor Azilect (rasagiline) A year ago the results of the ADAGIO study were released. This large study demonstrated that for may people, it appeared that Azilect would indeed slow progression. Some people in the medical profession are not prescribing Azilect as the firstline medication for PD. Later it can be combined with levadopa meds.

Slowing progression is a tricky thing to measure in just one person. Taking a medication and still manifesting symptoms is not what people want. But how do you know that the symptoms wouldn't be much worse if you were not taking this med?

Please remember that a few years before Muhammad Ali's PD diagnosis, he had already been diagnosed with parkinsonian symptoms. His progression may have seemed rapid in the public eye but in fact he had several years before the actual PD dx.

Forced Exercise is another adjunct treatment which your father should explore. It takes a specific type of motorized exercised bike. The pedals require a motorized assist so that the legs can move at 80-90 rpm. This is because many PD patients cannot maintain that speed for the 40 minutes per session 3 X a week. My husband has not had access to this equipment but did have access to other types of exercise bikes. The bike did help some on the weak side (which is one issue for maintaining the speed) but the bike could not take him faster than he was pedaling on the good side. At the point where he began this exercise therapy, he had lost significant stamina and strength and could only manage about 65 rpm for only a few minutes.

People with Parkinson's who have done Forced Exercise as outlined have found both a reduction in symptoms and a lowered (not eliminated but lowered) reliance upon medications. The exercise program should be sustained. Apparently the good effects begin to wain in a few weeks after stopping a regimen. This therapy is now in clinical trials.

There are going to be pros and cons to any medication, whether over-the-counter, prescribed or as a nutritional supplement. It is worth knowing that it is a good idea to have liver and kidney function tests every year or so as many of these meds are metabolized in the liver and excreted through the kidneys. If you plan on this defensive type of medical care, it is easier to be proactive about your treatment.

Attitude is very important. Sense of humor is invaluable. Being open to suggestion is another. Don't close off the world - listen, read and learn everything you can about the disease and the treatment and therapy options.

There are no good lab diagnostics in general use yet nor are there cures. There are more clinical trials in progress to study urate, creatine, CoQ10 as aids to reduce progression or at least symptoms. There is deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery which has been very effective in reducing symptoms (not the course of the disease but the symptoms of the disease) for many people. Just remember that it is not without the standard surgical risks and there are some symptoms which are not addressed and a couple which could become worse. Research is in progress to refine the targets of this type of surgery and the actually implanted equipment is being made both smaller and longer lived to prolong the time when replacement surgery is needed (oddly enough not always covered by health insurance).

A very important resource for any PwP is a support system. Releases signed with doctors so that family can eventually communicate with the doctors. People who can treat the patient with dignity. People who can take on driving chores if reaction time slows too much. People who will love the patient enough to help maintain his/her feelings of self worth.

Additional reading with links to more resources:

About PD:

About treatment options:

About Forced Exercise:

Some things in the pipeline:

Another suggestion is that both you and your father register at Patients Like Me. You can register as a caregiver. You can then join the discussion in the Parkinson's disease community and ask questions. Another site for discussion is WeMove.org

Best wishes to you and your family.

Parkinson's disease?

Ashley, my wife had signs of Parkinson's in high school. Doctors told her things like she was a hysterical girl, they gave her anxiety medication, etc. She wasn't diagnosed properly until she was in college, and even then she had to go to Jefferson Hospital in Philly, to a world-renowned specialist in order to get a proper diagnosis. Young onset PD is indeed very rare, and even more rare for people as young as my wife was at the time-- and you are now. Your parents need to take you to a good neurologist and discuss the family history, as there is a strong genetic correlation in some cases. Good luck sweetheart. It's a difficult road. But do know that you may still have a family someday if you want. My wife and I had kids, and they are happy and healthy. If you do have PD, you can still have a long happy life, but there will be many more challenges. But you will find the strength to do it!

Edit:

Oh, one more thing-- since PD is such a force in your family life, you know all the symptoms well. It may be possible that you are giving yourself some of the symptoms from your anxiety and worry. This would be preferable to actually having PD. The brain is powerful in what it can do and how it deals with things.

Question about Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease?

This is really a good question.

Remember, as another answer pointed out, Parkinson's disease symptoms may vary from patient to patient. Although we think of tremors as the common symptom in PD, they often are delayed in intensity in some patients; although this was not the case with Michael J Fox.

Don't forget he had a risky PD surgery, thalatomotomy and was on medication which he took in a somewhat reckless manner (which may be seen in the dystonias which appear now in his movement) When the movie was shot, he was on medication to control symptoms. Shooting may even have been delayed for a scene until the medication(s) took effect.

Movies are made in scenes. The screen images we appear were shot over many days/weeks. He only had to control symptoms for a relatively brief time. He could do this through his use of levodopa/carbidopa (Sinemet) the standard Parkinson's medication at the time. Sinemet taken over a prolonged period of time can result in a "wearing off" effect. That is the dose will not be effective for as long a time as it used to be. The result is dystonia or dyskinesia: spontaneous movements of the body - head, torso, limbs which are uncontrollable. These can often be brought under control with increased dosages or the addition of another COMT medication to prolong the effect of the Sinemet.

These days it is possible that Mr Fox's neurologist would have prescribed rasagiline or Azilect as the first medication as it has been shown to slow the progression of the disease. He would probably have been on high doses of CoQ10 (which helps my husbands tremor relief) and perhaps Creatine (although regular kidney/liver testing would be required)

It is also possible that he would have had Forced Exercise equipment in his trailer or his residence so that he could follow the regimen every other day for 40 minutes a day in an effort to provide short term (a few weeks) relief of symptoms and reduce his reliance upon medication. But that information wasn't available in the 1990s.

The irony of his situation is that thanks to him, Parkinson's disease has received much more attention, raised millions more for research and helped make studies available due to research grants from MJFF. And because of this many people have had small benefits and through his foundation's funding there may be improved therapies and cures. But whether he will ultimately be able to benefit is unclear. We all hope and believe that the cure(s) will be found in time to help him but in may be many years.

In the meanwhile, having PD has changed his life in both good and bad ways. The world is a better place for his presence.

Additional reading:

Keep in mind that controlling symptoms does not equate with eliminating them. It simply means that for a few hours, some symptoms abated in their appearance. But they were there and as the effects of medication(s) wore off, the symptoms returned.