Parkinson's Disease in the Very Old - Clinicopathological Observations

Abstract

Background:The incidence of Parkinson syndrome (PS) increases dramatically after age 80 years. As the number of the very old (>80 years) is rising in the population, the number of PS cases would increase. In the general population the most common variant of PS is the Parkinson's disease (PD). PD is characterized by marked loss of substantia nigra neurons and Lewy Body (LB) inclusions. All the pathological variants of PS in the elderly however remain unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of different PS variants and their course in the elderly individuals.