Parkinson's Disease Blog

I know that they say Parkinson’s is not hereditary but I have it and so do two of my cousins. How can the doctors be sure?

Researchers have looked carefully at people with Parkinson’s and at their families and, in most cases, there is no other member of the family with the condition. Certainly the illness is only rarely hereditary in the usual sense of the term, in that neither the mother, father, brothers or sisters have had the illness. Someone who has been diagnosed need have no worries about their own children or siblings even if they are identical twins.

Having said that, if one looks in the wider family, for example cousins (as in your case), there is a slightly higher frequency of the illness than one would expect by chance. There are also very rare examples where one cannot doubt that Parkinson’s is in the family. These rare families are of great interest to researchers and, very recently, genetic mutations have been described in genes found within these families, and specific proteins produced by the genes have been identified.

However, there are also cases in which everyone believes that there are several family members with Parkinson’s but, on closer examination, it turns out that family members with a familial tremor