The majority of Parkinson's patients in Spain are diagnosed one year after suffering the first symptoms, according to Dr. José Ángel Obeso, a physician at the department of Neurology of the Clínica Universidad de Navarra and scientist at research center Médica Aplicada (CIMA).

The expert stresses that detection at an early stage, through clinical examination of the signs and symptoms of the disease, is core topic to halt its progression. "However, 80% of the damage suffered by these patients in dopaminergic neurons - responsible for brain neuronal transmission related to movement - occurs between the first three and ten years of the disease, when it is still asymptomatic," he points out.

"Essentially," he stresses, "no one is diagnosed in the presymptomatic phase. There are many possibilities for treating the typical symptoms and signs of the disease, but there are still no definitive advances in terms of the origin and progression." For this reason, he believes that one of the main challenges is to understand how the neurodegenerative process begins and to stop it as soon as possible. In addition, goal consists of finding drugs to control non-motor symptoms, such as loss of smell or sleep disorders.

Worldwide, more than four million people have Parkinson's disease. In Spain there are some 80,000 cases and, according to the Spanish Neurology Society (SEN), 85% of those diagnosed are due to unknown causes and the rest to hereditary factors.