02/17/2026
Dr. Medling responds to Nurse Lauren's question today.
Great question from Nurse Lauren today:
“How can you tell if a patient has Parkinson’s?”
I’d actually expand that to a broader and very important clinical question:
How do we recognize neurodegenerative diseases in general — such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Huntington’s disease, or Frontotemporal Dementia?
For the sake of brevity, let’s focus on Parkinson’s, since that was the original question.
First, it’s important to understand that Parkinsonism and Parkinson’s disease are not the same thing. Parkinsonism refers to a clinical syndrome — a constellation of movement abnormalities — while Parkinson’s disease is a specific neurodegenerative disorder that causes that syndrome.
There’s a lot to unpack here, and it’s a fascinating topic.
Before I dive deeper, I’m curious — how many of you would be interested in a breakdown of how we clinically differentiate Parkinson’s disease from other causes of Parkinsonism?
If there’s enough interest, I’ll go into it. Fair enough?
