In every conversation I have about Parkinson's - and believe me, I've had many such conversations - the sentence "Every Parkinson's is different" comes up at least once. That's right, the symptoms are different in all patients and the course develops very individual.

What many do not know, however, is that research now assumes that Parkinson's is not just a single disease. Rather, we are dealing with a variety of neurological disorders crammed under one Parkinson's umbrella. Welcome to the Parkinson's party!

All things new

Let's take a look at the most recent report by a team of researchers from Australia, highlighting the implications of this finding for diagnosis and therapeutic options. The title translates to: "Redefinition of the hypotheses driving Parkinson's research".

So far, research has tried to assign all symptoms to one cause, because we are dealing with a disease. But the result was never satisfactory. It did not explain the different starting points that were discovered for the disease. Sometimes it was the intestines
sometimes the brain or maybe the diseased protein cells.

However, if we now use the new findings as a basis, a completely different picture of Parkinson's emerges: we have different causes because we are dealing with different diseases.

Now I wonder if scientists are taking it easy and twisting the hypothesis to make the inexplicable explainable. Why should that help us patients?

We find the answer in this very Australian study. If we take a differentiated look at the diagnosis and assume several diseases, it is easier to develop individually tailored therapies and adapt them as the disease progresses.

Every peak a Parkinson's

The authors of the study take their readers on a hike into the mountains. Each mountain represents a Parkinson's disease. The starting point is in the valleys, where the base camps are at different heights. Depending on their genetic predisposition, the patients will
assigned to camps and from there make their way to the peaks. Which route they can take and how fast they can progress depends on various factors that they encounter along the way. Such as environmental influences: How many pesticides were they exposed to
and for how long? How healthy did you eat and how much sport did you do? The topography of the mountain is determined by the state of the microbiome in the gut. All factors taken together determine the symptoms and progression of the diseases.

The paths never lead directly to the summit. They sometimes interbreed or merge with each other. Patients can switch to a different path along the way that takes them to a different peak. There are signposts on the paths, the biomarkers that the Therapy determine. This
Signposts may change over time. You always have to keep an eye on them.

The scientists of the study warn against combining several peaks from a therapeutic point of view, because then the therapeutic possibilities cannot be fully exploited, as is currently the case. The tendency is always there to bring as many patients as possible under one therapeutic roof.

They suggest switching from a purely clinical and thus rigid approach to a more differentiated, interdisciplinary approach and also looking at Parkinson's from a molecular-biological point of view, as is already the case with other complex diseases.

That all sounds very plausible and obvious to me.

Hope is born

This study gives me hope. How often do I now, in the eighth year of my illness, hear the sentence “I’m out of therapy” in self-help groups and from friends. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I hope not to have to hear this sentence for a while. I will probably not benefit from the findings from this and similar studies. But they shed a much more positive light on the paths of the patients who are now gathering in the base camps for the hike to the Parkinson's peaks.

I call out to everyone else, “Hey! You are no longer alone with your personal Parkinson's. You're even carrying a whole Parkinson's family with you! Goodbye Mr. P., Mr. Parkinson, little one
Giftzwerg and whatever else you are called, let's make the best of it and celebrate a big Parkinson's break together!