During the last decades, atypical parkinsonian disorders such as multiple system atrophy, dementia with Lewy bodies, progressive supranuclear palsy, and corticobasal degeneration along with secondary parkinsonian disorders have been increasingly recognized as important causes of parkinsonism. Although treatment options are largely limited to date, remarkable progress has occurred through advanc...

Parkinsonian symptoms are associated with a number of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy, and progressive supranuclear palsy. Positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission tomography (SPECT) now are able to visualize and quantify changes in cerebral blood flow, glucose metabolism, and neurotransmitter function produced by parkinsoni...

This review of Parkinson's disease and related disorders emphasizes the difficulties of distinguishing between variants of the parkinsonian syndrome. Characteristic clinical features may remain absent for many months, but accuracy of diagnosis may be improved by considering certain presenting symptoms and signs. The main characteristics of various parkinsonian syndromes are reviewed and their m...

BACKGROUND Dysarthria and dysphagia are known to occur in parkinsonian syndromes such as Parkinson disease (PD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), corticobasal degeneration (CBD), multiple system atrophy (MSA), and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Differences in the evolution of these symptoms have not been studied systematically in postmortem-confirmed cases. OBJECTIVE To study differenc...

Freezing of gait (FoG) is a debilitating feature of Parkinson's disease and other parkinsonian disorders. This case demonstrates a variant of freezing of gait in a non-parkinsonian patient with a lesion of the anterior corpus callosum. The freezing improved with increased upper extremity sensory input, suggesting that compensatory circuits for use of somatosensory inputs from the arms to postur...

As there are no biological markers for the antemortem diagnosis of degenerative parkinsonian disorders, diagnosis currently relies upon the presence and progression of clinical features and confirmation depends on neuropathology. Clinicopathologic studies have shown significant false-positive and false-negative rates for diagnosing these disorders, and misdiagnosis is especially common during t...