In 2008, Joseph Jankovic looked into the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and how to differentiate it from other parkinsonian disorders. According to the paper, to give a proper diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, a doctor must base their diagnoses on clinical criteria. In other words, they must look at cardinal signs of parkinson’s disease, which can include primary motor symptoms (Symptoms that affect you physically, caused by parkinson’s disease), secondary motor symptoms (Symptoms that are a result from primary motor symptoms), and non-motor symptoms (Symptoms that are not related to movement). The paper itself gives a detailed look into how each symptom may look like on a patient and how it can affect them in their day-to-day life. It also includes data from various studies to show how showing these symptoms affect the accuracy of a diagnosis of parkinson’s disease. Along with that, the paper also briefly goes over other parkinsonian disorders.
The methods J Jankovic used for their research was a MEDLine search using key terms relating to Parkinson’s disease (PD). MEDLine is the National Library of Medicine’s and contains millions of references to journal articles, all of them being credible sources. Jankovic specifically looked for studies that assess symptoms of parkinson’s disease.
This research is significant because it can help with the diagnosis of parkinson’s disease and can lead to further research that can determine a more reliable way of diagnosing, or possibly making a test for parkinson’s disease in the future. The research may be useful for determining the risk of family members getting parkinson’s disease, since it is hereditary. The paper also includes an abundant amount of sources, making it more credible. While this paper may prove useful in some aspects, it does have it’s disadvantages. Some of the disadvantages of this paper may be that this information is something that seems to have already been determined before, as well as the list of symptoms is extremely broad to determine if a person has parkinson’s disease. It additionally says that it can be very difficult to determine if a patient actually has parkinson’s disease because of the broad symptom list, but also because it can be confused with another parkinsonian disorder, or another condition in general. Another downside is that the paper strictly focuses on how to diagnose Parkinson's disease, and not how to treat and/or cure the disease.
APA Format Citation: Jankovic, J. (2008, April 1). Parkinson’s disease: clinical features and diagnosis. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/79/4/368
