People tend to associate tremors and involuntary movement with Parkinson’s.  But, slowness of movement, gait and balance problems, loss of sense of smell, apathy, constipation, muscle cramps, fatigue, drooling, sleep issues and other symptoms may be common.

 Major "motor" symptoms: slowness of movement, resting tremor, muscle rigidity, and balance issues tend to define Parkinson’s.

• Non-motor symptoms, as loss of sense of smell may occur before the motor symptoms.

• There isn’t a lab test for Parkinson’s. 

• Parkinson's may result of some combination of genetic and environmental factors.

• Everyone appears to have a slightly different version of Parkinson's.

• It is more common in people over 60, but there is also a young onset version.

• Parkinson's usually responds well to a combination of medicines and exercise. 

• A diagnosis is usually for "idiopathic" Parkinson's -- Parkinson's of an unknown cause.

Approaches for controlling the symptoms of Parkinson's are evolving rapidly.

• Levodopa, first available in the 1970s, provides relief of symptoms.

• Deep brain stimulation techniques are evolving.

• Research is providing new and better approaches.

NIH documents on Parkinson's:  Basic Overview of PD       Technical discussion of PD.

There is no "cure" for Parkinson's, but you can use exercise, attitude, and medicine to moderate the impacts of it.

Note:  This page has defined Parkinson's in the context of classic movement based issues.  Some researchers believe that the as much as 70% of your dopamine production capability has been lost prior to the appearance of "motor symptoms".  If they can develop an early detection test, they may develop a treatment to stop the loss of dopamine, as opposed to treating the symptoms. 

A sketch from 1886 is often used to illustrate the impacts of Parkinson's.   The newer illustrations highlight the diversity of the people involved and the range of the impacts.  Some think these represent variations in the type of Parkinson's, others consider them to be stages of the disease