A tremor that won't stop, slow movements, rigid muscles. They're the classic signs of Parkinson's disease that alert doctors that something may be wrong.
"There's no definitive test in life to know whether someone has Parkinson's disease so that really leads to a lot of uncertainty, but it also misdiagnosis unfortunately," said Laurie H. Sanders, PhD, a neurologist at Duke University School of Medicine.
Because there's been no definitive test, patients are left wondering for months, sometimes years, what's wrong?
But a team of neuroscientists at Duke University hopes to change that. They've developed a simple blood test that can precisely diagnose Parkinson's disease sometimes before symptoms start.
"We saw increases in our marker potentially decades before that they have the disease," said Dr. Sanders.
This test checks for damage inside the mitochondria, which are the cells' energy centers. The test can tell with 85% accuracy whether someone has the disease.
"Our marker not only identifies Parkinson's patients but those that might have some particular underlying biology that might match best with some drugs," said Dr. Sander.