Diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Especially in early stages, the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease is challenging. Patients with a suspected diagnosis should always be transferred to a neurologist with special expertise in clinical differential diagnosis of movement disorders. The diagnosis should be confirmed by an established three-stage algorithm which involves the screening of clinical diagnostic criteria, possible exclusion criteria, special characteristics of atypical parkinsonian syndromes and supportive criteria.

Levodopa responsiveness of dysphagia in advanced Parkinson's disease and reliability testing of the FEES-Levodopa-test.

Background: It is still controversially discussed whether central dopaminergic stimulation improves swallowing ability in Parkinson's disease (PD). We evaluated the effect of oral levodopa application on dysphagia in advanced PD patients with motor fluctuations.

Methods: In 15 PD patients (mean age 71.

Dysphagia in Parkinson's Disease.

More than 80 % of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) develop dysphagia during the course of their disease. Swallowing impairment reduces quality of life, complicates medication intake and leads to malnutrition and aspiration pneumonia, which is a major cause of death in PD. Although the underlying pathophysiology is poorly understood, it has been shown that dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic mechanisms are involved in the development of dysphagia in PD.

Electrical pharyngeal stimulation for dysphagia treatment in tracheotomized stroke patients: a randomized controlled trial.

Purpose: Treatment of post-stroke dysphagia is notoriously difficult with different neurostimulation strategies having been employed with a variable degree of success. Recently, electrical pharyngeal stimulation (EPS) has been shown to improve swallowing function and in particular decrease airway aspiration in acute stroke. We performed a randomized controlled trial to assess EPS effectiveness on swallowing function in severely dysphagic tracheotomized patients.

Evidence for adaptive cortical changes in swallowing in Parkinson's disease.

Dysphagia is a relevant symptom in Parkinson's disease, whose pathophysiology is poorly understood. It is mainly attributed to degeneration of brainstem nuclei. However, alterations in the cortical contribution to deglutition control in the course of Parkinson's disease have not been investigated.

Loss of sensory function in patients with idiopathic hand dystonia.

Former studies suggest an additional involvement of the sensory nervous system, beside the involuntary contractions of antagonist muscles, in idiopathic hand dystonia. We studied contact heat-evoked potentials and quantitative sensory testing (QST) in 10 patients suffering from idiopathic hand dystonia and 10 age-matched healthy controls. Cortical potentials recorded from the vertex (Pz) after contact heat stimulation of the volar forearm and the dorsum of the hand at a temperature of 51°C showed significantly reduced A-δ-amplitudes.