Am I at risk for Parkinson's?

A fellow caregiver asked...

My father was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's. What's the likelihood that I'll also get Parkinson's? And are my children at risk, too?

Expert Answer

Graham A. Glass, MD, is the co-founder of PEAK Neurology and Sleep Medicine, LLC with multiple locations across Alaska. Previously, he was deputy director of the San Francisco Parkinson's Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Care Center PADRECC and assistant clinical professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Glass received his medical degree from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at the San Antonio School of Medicine and completed his neurology residency at Tufts-New England Medical Center. He subsequently completed a fellowship in movement disorders at the Mayo Clinic.

This is a very difficult question to answer and to some degree depends on the age at which your father was disgnosed (young onset is more likely to be monogenetic) and whether or not he has a known genetic mutation or risk factor. Typically, however, we think that less than 8% of all parkinson's patients have a "monogenetic" form of parkinsons disease and the rest are sporadic and probably have to do with a number of genes interacting with the enviornment. In these cases, which are the majority, its very hard to determine if you are at an increased risk, but if so it would be a slighly increased risk.