Parkinson’s disease ("PD"), a neurodegenerative disorder, was originally described by James Parkinson in 1817. In his original “essay on the shaking palsy”, Parkinson stated that “until we are better informed respecting the nature of this disease the employment of internal medicines is scarcely warrantable”. Nearly two centuries later and despite major advancements, the aetiology/epidemiology of PD remains undetermined.

PD is a slowly progressive, degenerative disease, and is the most common movement disorder in middle or late life.  There are approximately 1 million affected individuals in the United States alone, representing 1% of the population at 65 years, increasing to 4-5% of 85 year-olds with roughly 50,000 new cases arising each year producing an annual estimated cost of $5.6 billion.

The main clinical phenotype of PD is “parkinsonism”, a movement disorder that is characterized by bradykinesia, tremor, rigidity and postural instability. Together with a clear response to dopaminergic therapy, these symptoms represent the idiopathic (i.e. unknown cause) disease. Secondary features of Parkinson's disease which may be attributed to degeneration of the nervous system include cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary systems dysfunction, orthostatic hypotension, arrhythmia, constipation, hyper-salivation, urinary frequency, impotence, hallucinations, depression and psychosis. Therefore, PD is defined as a multiple system movement disorder.

Useful Links

The following list contains links to web sites that may be of value or interest. Although these sites have been selected by Amarin they are not operated by Amarin and thus Amarin cannot be responsible for their content. Please refer to individual site publishers for additional information.

Parkinson's Disease Foundation
www.pdf.org

National Parkinson Foundation
www.parkinson.org