What is Parkinson’s Disease?

Parkinson’s disease is an autoimmune disease that affects the basal ganglia and substantia nigra of the brain. It’s your own immune system attacking itself. This progressive disorder of the nervous system affects movement.

What are the characteristics of Parkinson’s Disease?

What it comes down to is most the time an MRI doesn’t show any type of changes within the brain function, and it’s diagnosis is done more symptomatically – whether you’re having spasms, you’re doing pill rolling in your hands. You walk around without a smile on your face and appear expressionless, which is called facies. You have really rigid muscles and muscles spasms, trouble with your memory, trouble with your sleep … Those are the type of things that characterize Parkinson’s Disease.