A study of Parkinson's disease brings Medicine to life......For me

     Last week concluded my final "real" block for my first year of medical school. (By that I mean that I am now in a "Synthesis" block...which hopefully should be pretty straight forward). I am glad to have what I believe to be the most difficult block of the year behind me, but I am thankful for the lessons I learned during it.
     You see, last block was the head and neck/cognition block. During this block we learned a great deal of interesting information about how the brain works and communicates with the body, how the body relays information to the brain, and of course a bunch of tedious information about the exact path neurons from specific body parts take to go to their destination.

    In this vast amount of information, we also learned about numerous disorders and diseases including, but not limited to; Meniere's disease, Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington's disease, and Parkinson's disease. Of all the diseases I have learned about this past year the one that has affected me the most is Parkinson's disease. Why??   My grandfather died in 2004 from complications due to Parkinson's disease.
 
   So what is Parkinson's disease....it is a hypo-kinetic brain disorder characterized by tremors and difficulty with walking, movement and coordination. Parkinson's is often associated with some form of dementia as well. Parkinson's affects both men and women, usually in their mid to late 50's, and there has been a genetic correlation found in some cases.

    My grandfather was one of the most amazing people I ever knew. He was loving, funny, smart, and caring. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's when I was really young, and in the beginning I didn't notice the slight changes that started. The unilateral tremor, the slight memory loss, the trouble starting to walk, etc. As I got older I did, however, start to notice. I noticed that he couldn't feed himself without making a mess, he couldn't go for a walk, or any of the other things that he used to be able to do. It was really hard to watch him degenerate over the years, especially mentally. Towards the end he couldn't remember the names of any family, where he was, or what was going on. Parkinson's is truly a terrible disease, and having experienced it first hand I feel I have more insight than most of my classmates. I know each classmate of mine probably has a similar story with a different disease, and I believe that experiences like these will make us all better doctors.
      Learning the ins and outs of the disease that took my grandfather was hard, but I can only hope that this understanding about Parkinson's brought by science will help to one day cure this horrid disease.


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