Answer To: Written Assessment: B (Science) (30%) ON Weight: 30% Length: 1,500 words Case Study 2 - Mr Patrick...
Anju Lata answered on Sep 09 2020
Running Head: Case Study 2- Parkinson’s Disease
Case Study 2: Parkinson’s Disease 5
HSNS262 ASSESSMENT PART-B
Case Study 2: Mr. Patrick Drew
(Parkinson’s disease)
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Introduction
Parkinson’s disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease of Central Nervous System which mainly restricts the body movements, a condition known as Bradykinesia in medical terms (Muller, 2012) and also affects the mental ability of the patient. The report refers to a case study of Mr. Patrick Drew, a 74-year old man who is a patient of Parkinson’s disease. The work elaborates the Pathophysiology and Pharmacology of his symptoms.
Pathophysiology
The physiological symptoms of Parkinson’s disease occur due to consistent reduction in a number of neurotransmitters like Dopamine (Lo Monaco et al, 2018). With time, as more of the affected cells are lost, it leads to worsening of symptoms. The disease progresses sequentially and gradually initially affecting the dorsal motor nuclei of olfactory bulbs and vagus nerve, after that progressing towards locus coeruleus, the disease consequently affects the substantia nigra region (Stagg & Grice, 2011). The disease reaches the cortical areas of the brain at last. Damaging all these neuronal systems, the disease impairs the motor system, neurophysiologic and cognitive mechanism of the body. The motor impairment reduces the speed and amplitude of limb movement, as evident in the symptoms of Mr. Patrick.
Dopamine and its Role
Just like other neurotransmitters, the dopamine transfers the action potential from one neuron to another through synapse. After traveling along the axon, as the action potential reaches the pre-synaptic area of neuron, it triggers the release of neurotransmitter molecules which travel through the synapse and binds to the membrane of postsynaptic neuron.
The comparison of mechanism of healthy neuron with that of a Parkinson affected neuron shows that the dopamine progressively reduces with age in Parkinson’s patients. When the motor symptoms start appearing first time in the patient, by that time there is a tremendous loss of dopamine in the neurons. As the production of dopamine consistently reduces in the pre-synaptic neurons, very less amount of dopamine is there to travel through the synapse to bind the receptors at postsynaptic membrane. This loss of dopamine gives rise to Tremors, postural instability, trembling in extremities, shuffling gait and gaze limitations. Similar symptoms are evident in case study of Mr. Patrick.
The loss of Dopaminergic neurons is relatively different in the process of normal ageing, in idiopathic Parkinson’s disease, in Parkinson’s disease caused by genetic and environmental factors, and during the early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
During the normal process of aging the dopamine loss takes place at a very marginal level without affecting the motor functions of the brain. In idiopathic Parkinson’s disease, the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons occurs at slow rate and the motor symptoms appear at old age (Konno et al, 2018). Mr. Patrick seems to suffer from Idiopathic PD, because he has progressive degeneration at old age. When the Parkinson’s disease occurs due to genetic and repeated exposure to environmental agents, the motor symptoms appear during later stage in life. In early onset of disease, the mutation of PARKIN gene leads to the decline of dopaminergic neurons and appearance of symptoms at a very early stage in life (Konno et al, 2018). Sometimes when the intoxicants affect the in utero development, it lowers the number of dopaminergic neurons at birth, making the newborn more susceptible to incept the...