Clinical features and laboratory findings for differentiating parkinsonian syndromes

Most clinicians and researchers still accept idiopathic Parkinson's disease as a disease entity, although the identification of several genes or loci responsible for certain inherited forms of Parkinson's disease have provided arguments for a clinical heterogeneity of this disorder. The here proposed new classification of syndromes and diseases which show a parkinsonian syndrome in isolation or in combination with other symptoms divides patients into groups based on a set of rules mainly on a clinicopathological basis. It illustrates the current state of the art and will eventually be replaced due to an increase in the knowledge of the pathophysiological basis of these diseases. According to this classification, the crucial clinical features and laboratory findings are reviewed. The report will mainly concentrate on parkinsonian syndromes in degenerative diseases.