Details of preparing history & video
History
- Beginning of the disease-symptoms
- Month and year of diagnosis of Parkinson's disease
- Progression of Parkinson's disease symptoms in chronological order
- Detailed drug history since beginning, side effects of drugs if experienced till now e.g. dyskinesia, confusion, hallucination etc.
- Present status of the disease and present medication schedule
- Any abnormalities in imaging studies i.e. CT or MR scanning
- Any other family member affected by Parkinson's disease
- Any other medical illness
How to prepare a video
Before going into details of video preparation, you should understand following terminologies:
- "off" period - This is the period between two scheduled doses of levodopa, nearer to the later dose. During this period, you experience your disease symptoms with more intensity and you feel like taking levodopa. Your tremors, rigidity and slowness of movements will increase during this phase.
- "on" period - This period starts after you take your levodopa dose. The duration of this period varies from patient to patient. During this period, your disease symptoms reduce and you become more active.
- Dyskinesia - These are abnormal involuntary movements (not under your control) of limbs or neck. These movements are seen after taking levodopa or other dopamine agonist drugs as a side effect of the drug. This is seen during "on" period.
- Dystonia - This is an involuntary, sustained, repetitive muscle contractions resulting in twisting or spasmodic movements or abnormal postures. This is seen in "off" period.
Video recording in "off" period
Follow the following steps while preparing a video:
- You should be off drugs for 10-12 hours at least, say overnight without medications. Next day morning, you will feel disable in form of having more tremors, rigidity and slowness of movements.
- Sit on the chair and tell someone to start video recording.
- We will need the close up of your face to start with.
- Tell your name, age, address and telephone number.
- Your face, upper limbs, lower limbs should be visualized on video for 30 seconds (each).
- Rest tremors should be recorded for all four limbs. Stretch your both the upper limbs in front of you and keep there for a while.
- Movements of your upper limbs should be recorded. e.g. Full closing and opening of the fist of both the hands, Full supination and pronation movements of upper limbs, i.e.,movements of upper limb so as to see your palm and back of the palm repeatedly, touching to index finger with thumb repeatedly as fast and complete movements as possible for 15 seconds or till there is an arrest of movement.
- Record the movements of your legs i.e. lifting the leg as high as possible and bringing back in original position. The movement should be complete and as fast as you can for 15 seconds or till there is an arrest of movement .
- Sit up form the chair without support if possible. Repeat this 2-3 times and record it with full picture of yours.
- Go and sleep on the bed. Try to get out of the bed without support, if possible.
- Stand up and video recording should be done from front and from the side also to see the posture.
- Walking in the long passage if available otherwise inside the room. Close up of upper limbs should be recorded to see the arm swing. Close up of lower limbs should be recorded for the presence of dystonia and the way of walking. Full picture of yours should be recorded from the distance while you walk towards the camera.
Video recording in "on" period
This video recording should be done in "on" condition after you take your medicines. Similar procedures should be followed as described under "off" period. Presence of dyskinesia should be recorded with special consideration.
The total video recording time should not exceed 15 minutes.