Simple Question Aids Parkinson's Diagnosis

By John Gever, Senior Editor, MedPage Today Published: January 06, 2011 Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. Dutch researchers said they have found a way to distinguish atypical Parkinson's disease from the more common standard form: asking patients if they can still ride a bicycle. When the question was put to 111 consecutive patients with Parkinson's disease, nearly all those who said it had become impossible were subsequently determined to have the atypical form, according to Bastiaan Bloem, PhD, and colleagues at Nijmegen Medical Center in the Netherlands. "Simply asking about cycling abilities could be added to the list of red flags that can assist clinicians in their early differential diagnosis of parkinsonism," they reported in the Jan. 8 issue of The Lancet./.../