Movement disorders on the rise as life expectancy increases

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: The number of cases of aging-related movement disorders are set to explode in the coming years due to increasing life expectancy and overall changes happening to general health of people, experts have said ahead of the first-ever World Movement Disorders Day.

The International Parkinson and Movement Disorders Society has chosen November 29 to commemorate the birth anniversary of Jean-Charcot Martin, father of modern neurology, and to create awareness about movement disorders.

Movement disorders are a large variety of diseases, which are under acknowledged, but commonly present in the population. Dr Prashanth LK, Parkinson's disease and movement disorders specialist at Manipal Hospitals, said, “The recent Covid-19 infections caused a significant immune response in most people, leading to acceleration of the aging phenomenon and burning out of normal cells or neurons in the brain.

This can possibly lead to an outbreak of aging-related and neurodegenerative disorders in near future. Combined with increasing life expectancy, this may trigger a major spike in movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy over the next decade in India.”

The doctor added , “There has been a steady increase in patients at our movement disorders clinic over the years. In the initial phases, we were mainly seeing patients of Parkinson’s disease. However, with increased awareness and access to social media, the spectrum of movement disorders being witnessed at our clinic has widened now, with various parkinsonism syndromes, drug or medication-induced movement disorders, ataxic syndromes, chorea, dystonias such as cervical dystonia, task-specific dystonia such as writer’s cramp, and autoimmune movement disorders becoming more common.”

Talking about the various challenges in tackling the burden of movement disorders in India, he said that the primary challenge lies within creating awareness about movement disorders among the public and at the level of various medical specialties. Many patients visit different doctors for months before they get properly referred to a movement disorders specialist.

Better awareness about these disorders would increase early diagnosis and treatment. “The government also needs to make regulations to support people with movement disorders. Many times, proper disability benefits are not accessible to patients, as many movement disorders are still not recognised and they do not get disability benefits or work space modifications,” Dr Prashanth explained.

He explained that there is a clear lack of systematic epidemiological studies to understand the prevalence of various movement disorders in India. “For example, a disorder like Spinocerebellar ataxia type 12 (SCA12) is almost exclusively found in the Aggarwal community and nowhere else in the world. So, we ourselves need to do research on this India-specific disease, as the probability of Western countries looking for its cure is highly unlikely,” he said.