Levodopa for treatment of parkinson’s disease: Study of 120 cases

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease is a common adult onset neodegenerative disorder , induced mostly by the death of dopamine containing cells in the black substance (substantia nigra) . Hypothesis of a possible etiology of Parkinson’s disease may be complex interaction between environmental toxic factors, genetic and age (the incidence raises to almost 2% among over 65 year olds) related factors. We studied 120 patients with Parkinson’s disease living in Iasi, Romania, in 2006-2010, with ages between 50 and 80 years at baseline. Four patients were not included in the study as 2 of them being had neuroleptic medication induced parkinsonism and 2 of them have had ischemic strokes, thus the final lot of patients had 116 subjects.
Based on clinical symptoms and different scales of assessment (such as UPDRS – Unified Parkinson Rating Scale, Hoehn and Yahr scale, the Global Disability and Quality of life scale) we evaluated the patient’s clinical symptoms before and during Levodopa treatment.
The number of men in the study exceeded the women’s (90 men, 26 women, 8 rural patients and 118 urban patients). We have noticed a downfall in the clinical symptoms after Levodopa treatment.