Neurology New South Wales offers comprehensive and expert diagnostic and therapeutic services for patients with Parkinson's disease. Parkinson’s disease is a type of movement disorder. It occurs when changes in your brain affect the way you move. A familiar sign of Parkinson’s disease is an uncontrollable shaking or movement, called a tremor. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include loss of smell, slowness of walking/ activity, change in voice becoming more soft, abnormal movements in sleep, and falls. Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease can often build up slowly and expert diagnosis and intervention can often prevent years of living with intrusive symptoms.
The principal features of Parkinson’s disease include slowness of movement, rigidity in the arms and legs, tremors when at rest, difficulty walking, and imbalance. It is important to distinguish Parkinson’s disease from other Parkinsonian syndromes because it helps predict how well you will respond to therapy and how the disease will progress.
The team at Neurology New South Wales provide comprehensive, integrated care for patients with Parkinson’s disease and many other conditions of the brain.
Motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include:
Muscle stiffness
Slow or small movements (bradykinesia)
Tremor
Balance problems
Parkinson’s disease can also cause non-motor symptoms, such as
Bowel and bladder function changes
Loss of the sense of smell
Speech problems, such as low-volume, rapid, slurred, hesitant
Blood pressure changes
Mood or memory changes
Sleep changes
Our neurologist for Parkinson's disease in Sydney evaluates patients who are being considered for certain medications or treatments, provides support and counselling and oversees treatments and strategies for dealing with mood, memory, or other challenges. Neurology South Wales’s specialists are skilled in providing a wide range of therapies for Parkinson’s disease. While your treatment plan may include medications, and possibly advanced therapies, we also believe in the importance of maintaining a regular exercise regimen and eating a healthy, balanced diet.
At Neurology New South Wales you will find a team of neurologists specialising in Parkinson's disease in Sydney, up-to-date on the latest Parkinson's disease medications, therapies, and research to provide the best care. Our team will help patients continue living their fullest possible lives through treatment and rehabilitation.
Treatments for Parkinson’s disease
Many experts now believe that medication should be initiated immediately after diagnosis. Medication can help manage problems with walking, movement, and tremor by correcting or compensating for dopamine deficiency in the brain.
Botulinum toxin injection is another form of treatment, mostly for tremor and dystonia (abnormal muscle contraction). Botox is known to weaken the muscle it is injected into. Consequently, the relaxation of muscle spasms is promoted. These injections can be a particularly effective treatment for dystonia i.e. involuntary cramping movements of the limbs or neck, or eye twitching; and can sometimes be used to combat tremor. The botulinum toxin is injected into specific muscles or groups of muscles in order to achieve the desired effect. Benefits gradually develop over seven to 10 days. The treatment is usually effective for three months, so injections are repeated several times a year to maintain ongoing benefits.
Advanced treatment options
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) — a surgical treatment that involves the placement of a stimulator (like a pacemaker) into very particular components of the brain. By regulating these brain regions, DBS aims to improve symptoms such as tremors, slowness of movement, and rigidity. The surgery often enables a reduction of medication dosage and can reduce side effects from medication, such as dyskinesias resulting from levodopa (Sinemet). The motor fluctuations that often occur with disease progression can also be reduced with DBS.
Duodopa – An intestinal levodopa gel pump allows for continuous medication delivery to allow for more sustained symptom relief. This can be particularly useful for preventing medication fluctuation.
High-intensity focused ultrasound procedure uses high-intensity ultrasound waves to heat and lesion a small section of the target tissue in order to relieve tremors in Parkinson’s disease.