PREDICT-PD is a ground-breaking project using simple tests to identify people at high risk of Parkinson’s disease before the symptoms appear. Research suggests that problems including loss of sense of smell, sleep problems, constipation, anxiety and depression may occur many years before the movement problems of Parkinson's appear.
Parkinson’s is the second most common degenerative disease of the brain after Alzheimer’s disease. However, the number of people getting Parkinson’s is growing the fastest of any neurological condition and it is estimated that it will affect 14 million people worldwide by 2040. Once the diagnosis is made, there is no cure; there are only treatments to reduce the symptoms.
We believe that if we can predict who is going to get Parkinson’s, we will soon have treatments for those in the early stages that could slow or prevent the condition progressing – which would be a major step forwards towards a cure and could have huge knock-on implications for dementia and other age-related diseases of the brain.
