Urgent call for new drugs to treat causes of Parkinson’s

Doctors and scientists believe urgent action is needed to discover new medicines to tackle degenerative nerve ailment

Deryal Wood was 45 when she first began to suffer tremors in her hands. Her symptoms slowly worsened and she was diagnosed nine years ago as having early onset Parkinson’s disease. “I was given the drug L-dopa. The tremors disappeared,” she said.

But the tremors returned a few years later and doctors had to increase her dosage. “The side effects became horrible. My legs would freeze and I would fall over. I would suffer terrible muscle cramps every couple of hours,” said Wood, who lives with husband David and daughter Fay in Bexley, Kent.

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