Parkinson’s disease is actually a few different clinical entities, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Used to be Parkinson’s disease was thought of as a movement disorder, but now it’s known that as the condition progresses two different types of dementia can also emerge. Ted Dawson, a Parkinson’s expert at Johns Hopkins, says recent studies confirm that an aberrant protein known as alpha synuclein is behind it all.

Dawson: The driving force in both is pathologic alpha synuclein but they are clinically different disease entities. Parkinson's disease dementia occurs later in the course of Parkinson's disease, diffuse lewy body disease dementia occurs early. They both are characterized by Parkinson's disease and they're often separated by about a decade, maybe longer.                        :29

Dawson says the misfolded alpha synuclein can be found in skin biopsies and can help confirm the diagnosis, and may one day also be used to predict someone’s risk to develop Parkinson’s disease. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.