Parkinson’s Disease

Music to Torna a Surriento by Ernesto De Curtis, Lyrics by Arie Perry

CHORUS:
Parkinson’s Disease, a common movement disorder, with synuclein positive Lewy bodies

Shuffling gait and resting tremor, with substantia nigra pallor
And loss of neurons in the locus, in pigmented brainstem nuclei
Bradykinesia and rigidity, along with postural instability
Responsive to L-dopa commonly, in early stages of disease
Increasingly it’s more refractory, requiring other forms of therapy
Such as deep brain stimulation, or pallidotomy

CHORUS

If there are psychiatric symptoms, it may involve the limbic system
Dementia may become a feature, in cortical disease
Lewy bodies in the hippocampus, and many in the cingulate gyrus
As well as entorrhinal cortex, defining DLBD
Though at least one other explanation, for dementia in a PD patient
There’s more than just a chance relation, for Alzheimer’s disease

CHORUS