Epidemiology of Parkinson's disease

Abstract

The incidence of Parkinson syndrome in North America is 20.5/10(5), adjusted to 1970 US population, and there has been no significant change between 1935 and 1979. The composition of different Parkinson variants in the general population, however, has altered remarkably during recent decades. Arteriosclerotic Parkinsonism is very rarely diagnosed now, post-encephalitic Parkinsonism is extinct and drug induced Parkinsonism, first identified in the 1950s, is now the second most common variant in the combined community and institutionalised population survey. There has been a trend to higher incidence of Parkinson's disease in recent decades and it is predicted that the incidence would rise further if the current population survival trends continue. There is no race or gender difference for the risk of Parkinson's disease. Survival in Parkinson's disease has increased since the widespread use of levodopa. The prevalence rate of Parkinson syndrome in North America is estimated at 300/105. Increased risk of Parkinson's disease in essential tremor patients and the reported protective effect of smoking are artifactual. Twin studies show a concordance rate of 10.5% in monozygotic and 10.8% in dizygotic twins, indicating against a major genetic basis for Parkinson's disease. Several large Parkinson's disease families with autosomal dominant inheritance are well documented. In one such family, linkage to chromosome 4 is reported and mutation in the a-synuclein gene has been identified. In several other families, linkage to that region was not detected. These families are believed to inherit a Parkinson's disease susceptibility trait.