Episode 124: Characteristics of Young-Onset Parkinson’s Disease

Although people often think of Parkinson’s disease (PD) as one affecting the elderly, approximately one in 25 people living with PD in the United States received their diagnosis before age 50. This is known as Young-Onset Parkinson’s disease (YOPD). While it shares many motor and non-motor symptoms with typically older onset disease, it does differ in some ways, particularly in terms of speed of progression, reaction to medications, life circumstances and underlying genetic risk factors.

In this episode, the first of two on YOPD, Dr. Bart Post of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, a Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence, describes some of the physical characteristics of YOPD. In the second episode, he will focus on some of the social and interpersonal issues, including work, family, and specifically women’s issues. He will also describe a program that his university has developed for people with YOPD.

Released: March 8, 2022

Bart Post, MD was born on March 30, 1972 in Grootebroek, the Netherlands. He obtained his medical degree in 1999 at the University of Maastricht (with honors). In 2000, he started his training as a resident in Neurology at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, which he completed in December 2008. In 2002, he started a research project on ‘Prognosis in Parkinson’s disease’ that resulted in a PhD thesis in 2009. In 2006, he started a master of Sciences (MSc) education in clinical epidemiology at the EMGO institute in Amsterdam.

In 2009, Dr. Post was certified as a clinical epidemiologist. Since 2010, he has been working as a movement disorder neurologist in the Parkinson Centre in the Radboudumc in Nijmegen (head: prof. dr. B. Bloem). He is part of the steering committee of several large Parkinson trials: the LEAP-trial (Early administration of levodopa in de novo PD); and the CHEVAL-trial (administration of acetylcholine inhibitors in PD patients with hallucinations) and the Fair-Park trial (Iron chelation in early Parkinson’s Disease).

Within the Movement Disorders he is a member of the Multiple System Atrophy (MSA) Study Group. Dr. Post has organized several masterclasses on parkinsonism and movement disorders in the Netherlands. He is a member of the examinations committee of the Dutch neurology Society. He is also a member of two Dutch guideline committees: 1. guideline diagnosis and management of Parkinson’s disease 2. guideline diagnosis and management atypical parkinsonism. In 2018 he was a visiting member of the movement disorders group of Victor Fung in Sydney, Australia.

At the department of neurology of the Radboudumc, he is chair of the residency program for neurologists and, in the Radboudumc, he is co-chair of the central committee for residency programs. Dr. Post is co-director of the Parkinson Foundation Center of Excellence Radboudumc, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He has a special interest in patients living with Parkinson’s disease at a young age and is heading a program of co-creating care for this patient group.