Parkinson's Disease Case Study

Research Question: Is there a correlation between Parkinson’s disease, paraquat exposure, and traumatic brain injury? This study delves into the effects of the paraquat herbicide and traumatic brain injury in the development of Parkinson’s disease. There seems to be a common connection between pesticides and other common farming poisons and the development of Parkinson’s disease due to the death of the substantia nigra pars compacta dopamine neurons. There also seems to be a correlation between PD (Parkinson’s disease) and traumatic brain injury that left the victim unconscious for over five minutes. The reason for this controlled case study was to determine to what extent these factors influenced the development of PD and if the controversy over pesticide and herbicide usage was at fault/ caused a higher …show more content…
They also expect to see a larger number of PD patients that had a traumatic brain injury, than those who have never been exposed to the herbicide Paraquat and/or not had a traumatic brain injury.
Methodology: Participants were enrolled in the study from 2001 to 2011 there were 357 participants in the experimental group and 754 in the control group. The experimental group consisted of “incident idiopathic Parkinson’s disease” participants. These are people who were diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease after the year 1999 that developed the disease due to an unknown factor. This is important to note, as the study pertains to the issue of pesticides and traumatic brain injury being a cause of the development of PD. The participants were selected based off a set of criteria very specific to the study. The participants had to come from within the area of three counties, Kern, Tulare, and Fresno, all of which are in California. They had to have a PD diagnosis within the last three years, prior to enrollment, could not be in the last stages of a terminal illness, and had to be residing in California for at least