Gender and ethnicity perceptions ‘skewing Parkinson’s treatment’

Efforts to treat Parkinson's disease worldwide could be hampered by issues of ethnic and gender-based perception among clinicians, according to a new scientific study.

Researchers at Tufts University, Brandeis University and the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan have found that clinical judgements delivered on facially-masked Parkinson's sufferers can differ according to the cultural background of patients and practitioners.

Facial masking, a condition which sees patients losing the ability to emote facially, can be a key indicator of the neurological condition, but the study found that US and Taiwanese clinicians are delivering different healthcare recommendations from the same symptoms.

This is because different societies have different expectations of how socially expressive patients should be, based on their racial background and sex.

Study lead Linda Tickle-Degnen said: "Practitioners need to better understand the complexities of this disease and ensure that their own personal cultural biases do not impact their treatment of patients."

This comes in the same week that a new Parkinson's UK-sponsored study was published revealing a further five genes known to be associated with the illness, bringing the total to 16.