2023 Volume 40 Issue 4 Pages 455-457
Parkinson disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease with various motor and non–motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, rigidity, tremor, constipation, sleep disturbance, cognitive dysfunction, and depression. Although multiple risk factors including aging, genetic predisposition, and environmental factors are involved in the pathogenesis of PD, the number of patients with PD has been increasing in recent years in the world. Previous reports have shown that the severity of PD is high in elderly patients from the early stage of the disease and that a particularly high percentage of them have symptoms such as impaired postural instability, freezing of gait, hallucination, and cognitive dysfunction that reduce their quality of life (QOL). In addition, it is necessary to take into account factors that may reduce motor function, such as frailty, cerebrovascular disease, and spinal disease, as well as the effects of multiple medications for comorbid diseases and the environment surrounding the patient, such as elderly caregivers. In this section, we discuss future issues, focusing on the epidemiology of PD.
