Debi Lucas had a tremor in her arm. Her feet froze when she tried to walk and she fell into her coffee table, busting her lip.
She went to a neurologist who thought she had Parkinson’s disease. Doctors normally diagnose the neurodegenerative condition by symptoms. Lucas, 59, had them.
But the neurologist, Dr. Jason Crowell, couldn’t be sure. The symptoms might be related to a traumatic brain injury Lucas suffered in a car accident decades earlier, he thought. Or they might be from her medications.
To find an answer, Crowell turned to a new test: a skin biopsy that can detect an abnormal protein people with Parkinson’s have inside their nerves. He took samples of skin near her ankle, knee and shoulder and sent them to a lab.
Parkinson’s disease can now be diagnosed with a skin biopsy that can detect an abnormal protein people with Parkinson’s have inside their nerves.
“The skin test basically is a window into the brain." https://t.co/rxT0u9XL6A https://t.co/rxT0u9XL6A
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 21, 2024