Do you move around a lot during your sleep? Or have you lost your sense of smell? New insights into Parkinson’s disease suggest that these might be the early signs of changes in the brain that mean you are at greater risk of developing Parkinson’s.
1. Loss of sense of smellA common recollection by people who are diagnosed with Parkinson’s is that they remember changes in their sense of smell several years before developing any tremor or other movement problems. But many people might not even recognize that their sense of smell is bad. It is only when tested that we see that up to 90 percent of people living with Parkinson’s have lost their sense of smell.
As for most of these early symptoms, people can develop constipation for lots of different reasons, but it is clear that people living with Parkinson’s have problems with bowel movements. Constipation may, in fact, be one of the very earliest features, occurring up to 20 years before Parkinson’s is diagnosed.
If you are interested in joining 10,000 others taking part in research aimed at finding people at risk of Parkinson’s, that might in time lead to prevention or cures, then please go to the Predict PD website.