Significance of Non-motor Symptoms

Introduction 200 years ago James Parkinson first described the clinical presentation of Parkinson’s syndrome of a movement disorder, which was given his name: Parkinson's disease. Since that time, our understanding of the disease has changed fundamentally as to the possible causes, underlying pathomechanisms, forms of clinical progression, and the spread of the neurodegenerative process. This new state of knowledge calls for both the possibility as well as the necessity of redefining PD. In order to meet this challenge, the International Parkinson’s and Movement Disorder Society (MDS) formed a task force to summarize the current state of knowledge according to the essential aspects requiring a redefinition [1]. Based on this, new criteria for clinical diagnosis were developed proceeding from the results of this group’s collaboration [2]. A further paper presented research criteria based on which a statistical method could be used to calculate the probability of a person to be in the prodromal state of Parkinson's disease [3]. The following presents the most important core aspects of the new state of knowledge and, in particular, the clinically significant diagnostic criteria of the MDS group.