van der Heide A, Trenkwalder C, Bloem BR, Helmich RC. The Last Straw: How Stress Can Unmask Parkinson's Disease.
JOURNAL OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE 2024;
14:889-893. [PMID:
38669558 PMCID:
PMC11191540 DOI:
10.3233/jpd-230400]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/26/2024] [Indexed: 04/28/2024]
Abstract
We discuss two people with Parkinson's disease (PD), in whom tremor manifested directly following a severely stressful event. Both were initially misdiagnosed with a functional neurological disorder. These stories highlight that stress can trigger the onset of clinical manifestations of PD, by unveiling an underlying disease that had been unfolding for many years. Thus, the sudden symptom onset after a stressful event is not unique to functional disorders, and may lead to avoidable feelings of guilt if people wrongly attribute PD to this event. It remains unclear what mechanism explains this phenomenon, and why symptoms persist after the stressful event has passed.
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