Serious Shortage of Doctors Affects Parkinson's Disease Patients

It is evident that people being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease are increasing in numbers. There are a lot of factors that could explain as to why this disease had made its home in some of the lives of people. This could be brought about by some factors such as genetics, age, gender, environment, and a mixture of some. According to Medscape.com, a site for healthcare professionals, it is also speculated that the rise is due to the changes in smoking behavior as this has been studied to have an inverse relationship with PD risk. At present, there’s a great need for neurologists. However, there are some issues in terms of offering medical services to every PD patient, which are listed below:

• According to the DailyMail, only 40 to 50 new specialists for Parkinson’s disease begin their practice in the American healthcare system every year while the sum total of patients in the country is about 1.5 million.
• In addition to that, the shortage of people specializing in Parkinson’s may face a bigger problem in the years to come when 70 million baby boomers start to age.  
• The cases of Parkinson’s disease in Australia are more prevalent in comparison to other serious physiological diseases such as breast cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia, and about 123,000 people to be diagnosed with the disorder by 2034. They also cited that one Parkinson’s nurse should be assigned to every 300 to 450 Parkinson’s patients.