By the time Parkinson’s disease patients are diagnosed — typically based on the tremors and motor-control symptoms most associated with the disease — about 60 percent of them also have serious damage to the heart’s connections to the sympathetic nervous system. When healthy, those nerves spur the heart to accelerate its pumping to match quick changes in activity and blood pressure.”This neural degeneration in the heart means patients’ bodies are less prepared to respond to stress and to simple changes like standing up,” says Marina Emborg, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medical physics and Parkinson’s researcher at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center. “They have increased risk for fatigue, fainting and falling that can cause injury and complicate other symptoms of the disease.”
University Communications