Differences between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease
Do you know the differences between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease?First, it must be said that these two diseases are two of the causes of dementia, namely, according to world health organization (WHO) data, Alzheimer’s dementia accounts for 60-70% of all dementia cases.
- However.
- It is important to note that these are two very different diseases.
- In addition.
- It should be noted that having one of these conditions does not always lead to the development of dementia (although this occurs in most cases).
- In that sense.
- We know that between 20 and 60% of people with Parkinson’s disease end up developing dementia.
In a study by Buter et al. (2008), published in the journal Neurology, involving 233 Parkinson’s patients, it was observed that about 60% of them developed Parkinson’s dementia over a 12-year period.
But what is dementia? This concept refers to all symptoms that occur as a result of neurological injuries or diseases, these symptoms involve the loss or deterioration of mental faculties and mainly affect three different areas: cognitive dominance (memory loss or changes in reasoning), behavioral dominance (behavioral changes) and personality dominance (personality changes, irritability, emotional lability, among others).
“There is nothing clearer than doing something repeatedly and expecting the results to be different. “Albert Einstein.
We will group the differences between the two diseases into different blocks and explain what each one is, all drawn from two reference manuals in psychopathology: Belloch, Sandon and Ramos (2010) and DSM-5 (APA, 2014).
The first block of differences between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease refers to its types of symptoms, which are:
One of the main differences between these two diseases is related to the way they affect the cognitive area, in the case of Parkinson’s disease there are failures in data recovery (memory), while in Alzheimer’s disease there are previously failures in the memory process (data In addition, memory and attention are more affected in Alzheimer’s disease than in Parkinson’s disease.
In the case of Parkinson’s disease there is what is called parkinsonism, a clinical syndrome characterized by the following symptoms: stiffness, tremor, bradykinesia (slow movement) and postural instability; on the other hand, in Alzheimer’s disease the onset of parkinsonism is very rare.
On the other hand, stiffness and bradykinesia appear very often in Parkinson’s disease, while in Alzheimer’s disease these symptoms appear only occasionally. Finally, tremor is a typical symptom of Parkinson’s disease, but rare in Alzheimer’s disease.
In addition to the symptoms already mentioned, other symptoms may appear in both diseases, for example, in Alzheimer’s disease the delirium occasionally appears, while in Parkinson’s disease this is hardly the case. Remember that delirium is an organic-cause disorder that mainly affects consciousness. attention and attention.
As for psychotic symptoms, visual hallucinations may occur in both diseases, more or less in the same proportion, and delusions, common in Alzheimer’s disease and punctual in Parkinson’s disease, may also occur.
Another difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease is related to the brain (substances, neurotransmitters and atypical structures). For example, while senial plaques usually appear in Alzheimer’s disease (extracellular deposits of molecules in the gray matter of the brain), in Parkinson’s disease, they rarely appear.
The same goes for other structures, such as neurofibrillary balls, which appear a lot in Alzheimer’s disease, but very rarely in Parkinson’s disease.
In contrast, Lewy bodies appear more frequently in Parkinson’s disease than in Alzheimer’s disease. Regarding neurotransmitters, we know that acetylcholine deficiency often occurs in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, but only occasionally in people with Parkinson’s disease.
Finally, in Parkinson’s disease, there is a dopamine deficiency, which does not occur in Alzheimer’s disease.
The age of onset is also different. Parkinson’s disease usually occurs between the age of 50 and 60, before Alzheimer’s disease, which usually occurs from the age of 65.
The prevalence of Alzheimer’s dementia is higher than Parkinson’s dementia and, according to DSM-5 (2014), is 6. 4% in Europe.
Finally, dementia appears earlier in Alzheimer’s disease than in Parkinson’s disease.
As for the type of dementia, in Alzheimer’s disease it is cortical (involves the involvement of the cerebral cortex), while in Parkinson’s disease it is subcortical (affects the subcortical areas of the brain).
In this sense, it should be noted that cortical dementia usually carries cognitive symptoms, while subcortical ones carry motor symptoms, however, the two types of symptoms can be combined to a greater or lesser extent.
It should be remembered that cortical dementias include Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Creuzfeldt-Jacob dementia and Lewy body dementia, while subcortical dementias mainly include Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and HIV-induced dementia.
“Alzheimer’s disease erases memory, not feelings. ” – Pascual Maragall-