See Through: Can an MRI diagnose Parkinson’s Disease?
While medical professionals hugely rely on MRI or Magnetic Resonance Imaging Tests for vividly determining almost all kinds of brain diseases, why not for Parkinson’s Disease?
Well,
I meant that an MRI is perhaps one of the best diagnostic techniques to detect Parkinson’s Disease! So the answer to your question would be – YES!
Although to date, no one test lay suitable for diagnosing Parkinson’s Disease, the American Academy of Neurology brings out the results of their research work stating that an MRI scan can detect Parkinson’s Disease with 85% accuracy!
Besides,
Other recent studies also confirm that MRI is a medical approach to contribute to the early diagnosis of this condition before any other diagnostic methods! An MRI can identify the specific markers in your brain that leave a red alert of Parkinson’s Disease.
That is when your doctor would be able to craft an early treatment and try to reduce the symptoms as much as possible!
Wait!
Do you not want to know what this disease exactly is and how an MRI can help in its early diagnosis? If so, hold your seats & keep reading till the end!
What is a Parkinson’s Disease?
Tell me,
Do you have a tremor or rhythmic shaking in your limb, typically of your hand or fingers? Does this tremor stop when you perform a task? Does your hand tremble, especially when it’s kept at rest?
Did your steps become shorter when you walk, and you end up having a slow movement? Do you face difficulty getting down from a chair or bed?
Is your muscle stiff & painful all the time? Can you not move your arms & legs or struggle to do so?
Are you face a problem in balancing your body? Did your posture become stooped?
Did you come across a loss of automatic movements? By this, I mean, Do you have trouble blinking or smiling? Or do you not have the ability to swing your hands while you walk?
Do you witness a drastic change in your speech patterns? Any hesitation before talking or slurring? Do you speak so quickly that all words jumble up?
Are you facing a problem with writing? Or did your handwriting turn smaller than it was before?
Beware!
They are all signs of Parkinson’s Disease, a chronic progressive brain disorder that originates from damaged or loss of nerve cells in one part of your brain, named the substantia nigra.
The nerve cells that exit in this brain part are the ones that conduct & control the production of a chemical substance in your body called dopamine. Yes. It is the chemical that coordinates between your brain & nervous system, thereby controlling your body movements.
So, regulate your body movements.
When these nerve cells get damaged or died-out, dopamine production in your body reduces, and so does your ability to control & regulate your body movements. Symptoms show up only when almost 50% of the nerve cell activity in your substantia nigra shrinks.
There may be various causes of this nerve cell damage ranging from genetics to environmental factors like pollution, extensive use of herbicides & pesticides, and so forth!
Yet again,
Antipsychotic medications, a series of small strokes, and other brain conditions like corticobasal degeneration or multiple system atrophy may act as the catalyst herein!
In fact, excess coffee drinkers, tea drinkers, and tobacco smokers tend to become the victims of Parkinson’s Disease!
MRI & Early Diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease
An MRI is a process in which strong magnets alongside radio waves lay used to bring forth an accurate & detailed imaging of your internal body parts & here, specifically your brain!
During this process, the radiologist will ask you to lie on a moveable table situated in front of a long & narrow tube. Then, you will get moved into the tube, which is the MRI scan, and you have to stay still without making any head movement for the entire time until the scanning stands complete!
Some of the information about Mri while having Parkinson
- According to a 2019 study on Parkinson’s Disease & MRI, the damaged nerve cells that exist in patients having Parkinson’s Disease lay visible in MRI imaging, that too when the brain atrophy begins without leaving any symptom.
- An MRI can help assess the extent of neuron damage and thereby introspect the possibility of further cognitive decline!
- MRI could help locate the exact nerve cell that lay damaged among the many and also where it started to die out!
- This can help differentiate between Parkinson’s disease & parkinsonism or a group of neurological condition that resembles the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease but are caused by trauma or toxins mainly!
- MRI also reduces the probability of misdiagnosis that is otherwise prevalent in the case of Parkinson’s Disease!
Hence, such a diagnostic approach is certain to help your doctor make his decision on the following treatment regimen precisely. Doctors can thereafter suggest early preventive measures like lifestyle changes and physical or speech therapy and may also recommend deep brain stimulation therapy if required!
Moreover,
Since your brain constitutes a wide variety of soft tissues, a static MRI may not be able to detail the tiny neurons amidst the existence of soft tissues!
And,
Your doctor is aware of this plausibility! Thus, he may order an MRI with contrast to ensure better clarity in the MRI findings of your brain scan! By involving the contrast dye, commonly known as gadolinium-based contrast agents, the imaging modality changes temporarily, highlighting the different soft tissues of your brain differently! The image is sharper & clearer, indeed!
Only there may be a few side effects that you have to bear, like headache, dizziness, nausea, or fatigue, but they shall go away in 24 hours once the dye exit your body through urine or sweat!
Summing Up:
Did your doctor recommend you a brain MRI? Are you looking for a suitable appointment to book your brain MRI in Chandigarh? We may be of help! Visit our e-commerce website www.mrichandigarh.com and book your test!
