Tests that could spot Parkinson's disease decades before symptoms start

By Pat Hagan For The Daily Mail

Published: 20:16 EST, 25 August 2014 | Updated: 05:26 EST, 26 August 2014

Secretary Sharon Blight was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at just 49

Secretary Sharon Blight initially put the numbness and tingling in her right hand and foot down to a tennis injury.

'I'd fractured my right collarbone after falling over on court 18 months before,' she recalls.

Surgery and physiotherapy restored full movement to her arm and shoulder, and when she developed the numbness and tingling, she thought it was a trapped nerve. But then her physiotherapist noticed a slight tremor in her foot and recommended seeing a GP.

'My GP said it was probably nothing to worry about, but I should see a neurologist,' says Sharon, a married mother-of-two from Aldershot, Hampshire.

But after ten minutes of examining her, the neurologist said he was almost certain Sharon had Parkinson's disease.

'I was in complete shock,' she says. 'I was only 49 and as far as I was concerned, Parkinson's was something that only affected the elderly and mainly men.'

It's a common misperception, which will only have been cemented by recent announcements about celebrity patients.

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Tests that could spot Parkinson's disease decades before symptoms start