The British physician James Parkinson reported in a publication in 1817 the clinical symptomatology in paralysis agitans or shaking palsy. The name of this disorder today is Parkinson's disease (PD).

Parkinsonism is characterized by hypokinesia, rigidity, tremor, symptoms from the vegetative nervous system, and in some cases dementia. Tremor is the most characteristic, and often the first symptom in Parkinson's disease.2 A still more incapacitating symptom is akinesia, which for the patients with the disorder results in augmenting difficulties at every movement.

The etiology is known in 25% of the cases of Parkinson's disease (medicaments, poisonings, cerebrospinal meningitis, etc.), and in 75% of the cases the etiology is unknown.1 Cases of unknown etiology are named idiopatic Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease has probably a multifactorial etiology involving genetic, environmental, trauma and possibly other factors.