Head Trauma Not Linked To Alzheimer's Disease But Parkinson's

Instead of Alzheimer's disease, severe head injury can lead to Parkinson's disease.

A new study found that traumatic brain injury that led to loss of consciousness ups a person's risk of developing Parkinson's. 

According to the lead researcher, Dr. Paul Crane, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, head trauma can lead to various effects that will culminate into Parkinson's."It could be that the head injury itself initiates a cascade of effects that ultimately lead to Parkinson disease," he said. 

Moreover, even though they are merely talking about risks, and are not saying head injuries will automatically lead to Parkinson's, the lead researcher claimed that head injuries can lead to alarming effects.

Brain injuries make it "more difficult for people who have sustained a head injury to recover, adjust to or deal with the cascade of events leading to Parkinson disease that are separate from the head injury itself," Dr. Carne said. 

These findings were gathered from data gathered from over 7,000 older adults, with an average age of 80. It is still not unclear why this correlation between head trauma and Parkinson's disease risk exists. 

The findings are a breakthrough not only for Parkinson's disease research, but also Alzheimer's. 

"The results of this study suggest that some individuals with a history of TBI are at risk for late-life neurodegeneration but not Alzheimer's disease," says Kristen Dams-O'Connor, PhD, Co-Director of the Brian Injury Research Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Rehabilitative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

"We want to identify and treat post-TBI neurodegeneration while people are still alive, but to do this, we need to first understand the disease. Prospective TBI brain donation studies can help us characterize post-TBI neurodegeneration, identify risk factors, and develop effective treatments."