From research to real life: smell, sleep, constipation and Parkinson’s

… what do these 3 things have in common? Early detection of PD.

New research shows that hyposmia (loosing sense of smell), rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD), and constipation, may be early Parkinson’s disease manifestations that reflect the underlying alphasynuclein pathology (the degeneration that is happening in the brain!) as well as predict subsequent onset of motor manifestations (Ravina & Aarsland, Mov Disord 2013).

Also, recent prospective (it means the researchers followed patients for 4-years) study shows that patients with RBD have increased cognitive impairment on neuropsychological testing (Postuma et al., Mov Disord 2012). The results showed that 48% of persons with RBD developed some cognitive impairments (especially hallucinations and some cognitive fluctuations), compared to 0% of patients who did not have RBD. This gives us an indication that we should watch RBD diagnosis in Parkinson’s disease closely as RBD may be a good marker of cognitive impairment subtypes associated with Parkinson’s.

A typical sleep cycle (dementiatoday.com)

what RBD can often look like! Yikes! … and often dangerous to your bedmate
(netterimages.com)

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… so ask your bedmate and talk to your doctor about how do you sleep at night. much love.