could slow the progression of motor symptoms in people with advanced forms of the condition. Although this shows promise to be the first disease-modifying treatment for Parkinson’s, it is unclear whether the drug actually clears the proteins from the brain.
While some existing treatments aim to ease these symptoms by improving dopamine levels in the brain, their long-term effects are limited. So far, there are no approved disease-modifying therapies that halt or slow the progression of Parkinson’s.at Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche and his colleagues recruited 316 people who were thought to have early-stage Parkinson’s disease.
These individuals had rapid eye movement sleep behaviour disorder, where people act out intense and often violent dreams, which is common in Parkinson’s; were taking drugs called MAO-B inhibitors to manage their symptoms; or had been rated by their specialist as being at stage two out of five on a symptom scale.
For example, based on a Parkinson’s disease rating scale for motor symptoms, with a higher score indicating greater severity, those on MAO-B inhibitors who then received placebo infusions scored 6.82 at the end of the year, while those taking both the inhibitors and prasinezumab scored 4.15.