Groundbreaking study may help doctors detect Parkinson's disease prior to symptoms
ARLINGTON (CBSNewsTexas) - A new groundbreaking study may help doctors detect Parkinson's disease even before symptoms appear.
Around 90,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's each year. Typically it's their symptoms that lead to the diagnosis, but a new study is shedding light on a way to potentially get an earlier intervention.
Dr. Kevin Conner is a neurologist at Texas Health Arlington Memorial. He wasn't involved in the study, but helped break it down.
He said researchers started with identifying patients they felt were at risk of Parkinson's.
"They did what was called the smell test," said Conner. "They actually sent them a little device where they do a scratch and sniff test to see whether or not they had abnormalities of smell."
Conner said the researchers then asked about whether or not patients were having certain sleeping difficulties. He said they were given a spinal tap to test for a specific protein associated with Parkinson's. The research showed the test was accurate, even for those not yet showing symptoms.
"Neurodegenerative diseases are progressive and if we can identify something that perhaps lowers this protein in the brain it would be game changing," said Conner. "The whole goal is to try to develop new medications that are geared towards trying to impact this disease before these proteins accumulate in the brain, because after that it's it tends to be too late."
Conner said that right now the test isn't exactly practical for most patients, as COVID-19 also can disrupt a person's sense of smell. It is, however, a major advancement in terms of possibly speeding up research.
The study was funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
