RESEARCH INTO ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: PARKINSONIAN STIFFNESS

Among the different groups of people with Alzheimer’s disease that stand out are those people who develop movement abnormalities. Parkinson’s disease is well known because it causes a clearly visible tremor or trembling of the hand or foot and eventually often the whole arm or leg. It also has many other symptoms including a particular form of stiffness in the limbs. Some people with Alzheimer’s disease can also develop this type of stiffness and it is now known that when this occurs, it often indicates that the underlying disease process is going to be more rapid than for those sufferers who do not have this problem.

However, many people with Alzheimer’s have this type of stiffness not because of the disease, but because of some of the medicines that are often given to control more disturbed behaviour. It should be possible for a doctor to differentiate between the drug-induced stiffness and that caused by Alzheimer’s disease.

There is a view that the person with Alzheimer’s disease who has the type of stiffness that is characteristic of Parkinson’s disease may have both conditions together, and that Alzheimer’s itself does not cause this type of stiffness. Although both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease can occasionally occur together in the same person, this is by no means often the case. The intriguing overlap between the two diseases has led to much speculation and some research centres are studying in great detail people who have symptoms and signs of both conditions in the hope that this will give us greater insight into both these illnesses.

This may prove to be a particularly important area of research as there are some similarities in the changes in the brain, both structural and biochemical, in the two conditions. Unravelling these may lead to better treatment strategies and perhaps even an understanding of the cause of degenerative diseases of the brain.

Dividing people into sub-groups in this way has been challenged by some researchers who do not feel that we have, as yet, enough knowledge to perform this task reliably. Nevertheless many of us working in this field believe strongly that sub-groups do exist -but can sometimes only be identified by carefully following up a sufferer over a period of time — and that this knowledge can be used to help families plan for the future with a greater degree of certainty than would otherwise be possible.

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