Why do PSP patients fall backwards?
Early falls feature in the diagnostic criteria for PSP‐RS and constitute a defining clinical feature.4, 5 The falls of PSP‐RS are unexplained by environmental hazards, loss of consciousness, or cardiovascular causes and are disproportionately common backward.
How rare is progressive supranuclear palsy?
According to some reports, PSP is estimated to affect as many as 5-17 in 100,000 people, but recent autopsy studies found PSP pathology in 2-6% of elderly people that had no diagnosis of PSP before death. The onset of this disorder occurs between 45 and 75 years of age, with the average age of onset at about 63 years.
Is Lewy body dementia the same as PSP?
The greater density of LBs in LBD compared with PSP/LBD may be the result of longer disease duration in LBD, whereas greater neuronal loss in the substantia nigra in PSP/LBD may be the result of vulnerability of this brain region to both disease processes.
Are PSP and ALS related?
The coexistence of distinct neurodegenerative diseases in single cases has recently attracted greater attention. The phenotypic co-occurrence of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been documented in several cases.
Can PSP be misdiagnosed?
PSP often is misdiagnosed because some symptoms are very much like those of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and more rare neuro-degenerative disorders, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Is PSP always fatal?
Most of the time, it affects people in late middle age or older. Although PSP isn’t fatal, symptoms do continue to worsen and it can’t be cured. Complications that result from worsening symptoms, such as pneumonia (from breathing in food particles while choking during eating), can be life threatening.
Does PSP show up on a brain scan?
MRI scans can also detect changes to the brain that are consistent with a diagnosis of PSP, such as shrinkage of certain areas. Scans that show the build-up of the tau protein in the brain that’s associated with PSP are currently under development.
How long is life expectancy with PSP?
Studies of cohort patients dying under surveillance suggest that PSP is usually fatal within approximately 6 years of onset (range, 2-17 years); life table analysis among the entire cohort of Golbe et al revealed a median disease duration of 9.7 years.