January 8th, 2005
Diagnosing Parkinson's Early
As I mention every now and again, diagnostics is important. Catch any disease very early on - even those that are currently untreatable in late stages - and often something can be done to at the very least delay progression. SFGate reports on a new test for the early diagnosis of Parkinson's disease: "By the time unambiguous symptoms emerge, Parkinson's has usually been on the attack for years, destroying 60 percent or more of the special cells in the brain that control voluntary movement. ... Now scientists at drug giant Pfizer think they have stumbled on a simple test that is both sensitive enough to detect subtle biological changes due to Parkinson's and specific enough to avoid false alarms: analyzing how people speak."