Although people often think of Parkinson’s disease (PD) as one affecting the elderly, approximately one in 25 people living with PD in the United States received their diagnosis before age 50. This is known as Young-Onset Parkinson’s disease (YOPD). While it shares many motor and non-motor symptoms with typically older onset disease, it does differ in some ways, particularly in terms of speed of progression, reaction to medications, life circumstances and underlying genetic risk factors.

 

In this episode, the first of two on YOPD, Dr. Bart Post of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, a Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence, describes some of the physical characteristics of YOPD. In the second episode, he will focus on some of the social and interpersonal issues, including work, family, and specifically women’s issues. He will also describe a program that his university has developed for people with YOPD.