The majority of people with Parkinson’s reside in the lower age group of 50 and under, while 20% of people with Parkinson’s will develop symptoms before the age of 50. This is known as early-onset Parkinson’s and people with this diagnosis are more susceptible to motor symptoms. PD affects at least 1 in every 1000 and 1 to 2% of people over 65. One million people in the US and 10 million people worldwide are dealing with Parkinson’s Disease. 96% of people that are diagnosed are over the age of 50. Men are 1.5 times more likely to have Parkinson’s disease than women. It costs about $52 billion in the U.S. alone with medications costing $2500 a year on average and surgery costing as much as $100,000 [1]. In the US, 37.6% of the patients with PD did not have documented PD medication prescriptions filled during the study period, while 62.4% patients received treatment during the follow-up period. Of the treated patients, 85.2% were prescribed monotherapy and 1.3% were prescribed polytherapy. In the UK, 21.4% of patients with PD did not have documented PD medication prescriptions while 78.6% of patients received PD treatment prescriptions during the follow-up period. Of the treated patients, 68.5% were prescribed monotherapy and 16.2% were prescribed polytherapy [5]
