Stages of Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson's disease is often divided into2:

• Early disease: when symptoms appear and start to affect how well you can perform everyday activities, such as washing, getting dressed and walking, so that you need treatment
• Later disease: when movement (also called motor) complications occur, usually after long-term initial stage treatment. These complications usually happen when someone has been taking levodopa for some time. But people vary and they can occur after quite a short period of treatment. Movement complications include5:
  • Early morning lack of mobility and stiffness caused by the effects of medication wearing-off over night
  • On/Off phenomenon: unpredictable loss of function and movement which can last a few seconds or much longer, and may be unrelated to ‘wearing off' of medication
  • Abnormal movements (dyskinesias): Uncontrolled arm, leg, face or other movements, such as flailing arms or repetitive chewing motion