Parkinson's Disease in Elderly Caucasian Males: Risk, Care, and Policy
This paper examines the impact of Parkinson's disease on elderly Caucasian males (aged 65 and older), a population that accounts for approximately 60% of annual Parkinson's diagnoses in the United States. The paper reviews known risk factors—including genetic predispositions and environmental exposures such as pesticide contact—while acknowledging that the disease's etiology remains unknown. It identifies the most prevalent health issues affecting this population, explores existing barriers to care including geographic isolation and inadequate holistic treatment, and analyzes key social determinants of health. Health policy efforts and advocacy work by the Michael J. Fox Foundation are evaluated, and the paper concludes with recommendations to expand telemedicine access, increase attention to nutrition research, and develop stronger non-pharmacological interventions such as physical, speech, and occupational therapy.
- Population and Disease Overview: Epidemiology, prevalence, and disease mechanisms of Parkinson's
- Most Prevalent Health Issues: Top health conditions affecting elderly Caucasian males
- Existing Access and Barriers to Health Care: Treatment options, access challenges, telemedicine, and co-morbidities
- Key Factors and Social Determinants of Health: Lifestyle, environment, genetics, and social support factors
- Health Policies and Advocacy: Michael J. Fox Foundation's role and Congressional policy gaps
- Recommendations for Improving Programs and Interventions: Therapy, nutrition, and telemedicine as priority improvements
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds population-level claims in specific epidemiological data (e.g., 60,000 annual diagnoses, 60% Caucasian male prevalence), lending statistical credibility to its focus group selection.
- Balances peer-reviewed research citations with real-world policy analysis, connecting academic evidence to concrete advocacy outcomes such as the failed Medicare telemedicine bill.
- Organizes recommendations into three distinct, actionable categories—interventions, nutrition, and telemedicine—each tied directly back to evidence introduced earlier in the paper.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of evidence synthesis: it draws on multiple independent studies (McCormack et al., Satake et al., Seidl et al., Kleiner-Fisman et al.) to build a cumulative argument rather than relying on any single source. This layering of evidence is used to justify each recommendation, showing strong alignment between the literature review and the policy/intervention conclusions.
Structure breakdown
The paper follows a public health analysis format: it opens with population identification and epidemiology, moves through health burden and access barriers, examines social determinants and policy landscape, then concludes with tiered recommendations. Each section builds logically on the previous one, and the abstract accurately previews all major sections, making this a well-organized undergraduate-level health paper.
Population and Disease Overview
The population examined in this paper is elderly Caucasian males—white men over the age of 65. Approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease every year (Kowal, Dall, Chakrabarti, Storm & Jain, 2013). Almost 60% of these cases occur among the elderly Caucasian male population (Dahodwala et al., 2009). The total number of patients suffering from Parkinson's in the U.S. was estimated at 630,000 in 2010, but the prevalence of the disease is expected to double by the year 2040 based on rising case trends over recent years (Kowal et al., 2013). While the cause of Parkinson's is unknown, the basic mechanism underlying the disease—the death of dopamine-producing cells in the brain, which leads to a loss of bodily control—is sufficiently understood to support some possible treatments. A cure, however, has not yet been produced.
Risk factors include genetic makeup and environmental variables. Although it is not clear how the two work together, it is believed that some interaction between genes and one's environment prompts the death of dopamine-producing cells in the brain and triggers the onset of Parkinson's. McCormack et al. (2002) presented evidence suggesting that Parkinson's is related to exposure to toxic pesticides commonly released into the environment, such as the herbicide paraquat. Their experiments with paraquat on the substantia nigra pars compacta demonstrated a connection between the effect of pesticides on the brain and the characteristics associated with the onset of Parkinson's. Satake et al. (2009) identified genomic factors related to the onset of Parkinson's, suggesting that it may also be an inherited disease.
Most Prevalent Health Issues
The most common and prevalent health issues in the elderly (over 65 years of age) Caucasian male population are: (1) arthritis, (2) heart disease, (3) cancer, (4) respiratory disease, (5) Alzheimer's disease, (6) osteoporosis, and (7) diabetes. Other health issues for this population include falls, pneumonia, obesity, and depression (Jaul & Barron, 2017). Some of these health issues can be related to the onset of Parkinson's—such as falls and depression (Farombi, Owolabi & Ogunniyi, 2016; Frisina, Borod, Foldi & Tenenbaum, 2008). Parkinson's impacts 1% of the 65+ population, while approximately ten times as many people suffer from arthritis. Although Parkinson's disease affects a significant number of people, it is not as common as some of the most prevalent problems that the elderly white male population faces. Arthritis, heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, and Alzheimer's are among the most widespread conditions in this group.
Existing Access and Barriers to Health Care
Treatment for this population can include a range of interventions, including medications such as dopamine promoters, antidepressants, anti-tremor drugs, and cognition-enhancing medications. Self-care practices are also commonly used, such as participation in a physical exercise program. Specialist medicine is another option, with neurologists and primary care providers offering guidance determined on a case-by-case basis according to each patient's particular issues and symptoms. Because not every patient responds the same way to treatment—and some may experience co-occurring symptoms such as depression and anxiety while others do not—care providers must assess patients individually.
Access to care for individuals with Parkinson's disease is very much shaped by the individual's support network and may also be affected by socio-economic status. This is as true for the elderly white male population as for any other group. Because Parkinson's disease places the individual at a disadvantage in terms of mobility, patients must typically rely on some form of support to seek treatment, whether that support comes from family, friends, or neighbors in a retirement community. Access to care is available to those in the elderly white male population who seek it; however, barriers also exist depending on the degree to which the individual is isolated, lives in an underserved or remote community, lacks proximity to a health care facility, or has no support network for assistance with communication, transportation, and treatment.
As Dobkin et al. (2013) point out, Parkinson's "is frequently complicated by co-occurring psychiatric problems, such as depression and anxiety, that negatively affect the course and management of the illness" (p. 105). However, this co-morbidity is rarely addressed or treated by health care providers. Instead, providers tend to focus solely on the Parkinson's diagnosis and not on attendant issues that may be related, such as falling, anxiety, and depression (Dobkin et al., 2013). One of the barriers to proper care, therefore, is a failure on the part of the health care community to adopt a holistic approach to patient treatment. The primary reason health care providers fail to offer holistic care is that they often do not recognize the symptoms of mental health issues that correlate with Parkinson's disease (Dobkin et al., 2013).
Another barrier is distance and time. Elderly white male patients suffering from Parkinson's do not always have the means to travel for care, both because of the distance between themselves and a health care facility and the time required to make that trip. Elderly patients can tire frequently and become exhausted even by small outings. The need for multiple rest periods throughout the day can complicate any plan to receive care on a routine basis (Dorsey et al., 2013). Telemedicine is one way care providers can help patients with Parkinson's overcome obstacles of distance and time (Dorsey et al., 2013). The Michael J. Fox Foundation (2018) also advocates for the promotion of telemedicine to help bring the type of care that patients need to those who cannot physically overcome the obstacles of time and geography. Telemedicine is described as "the remote delivery of health care services and clinical information using telecommunications technology, including internet, cellular, wireless, satellite and telephone services" (Michael J. Fox Foundation, 2018). By using technology available today, health care providers can reach patients who might otherwise go without care—including the elderly white male population.
Other access-to-care options for this population include government benefits such as Social Security, Medicaid, and disability services. Members of this population may be able to apply for government aid to help obtain health care; however, Social Security is not as robust as it once was, and Medicaid also has limitations in the range of options it covers. In short, access to care exists—but it is limited and not as comprehensive as it could be.
References
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Dobkin, R. D., Rubino, J. T., Friedman, J., Allen, L. A., Gara, M. A., & Menza, M. (2013). Barriers to mental health care utilization in Parkinson's disease. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, 26(2), 105–116.
Dorsey, E. R., Venkataraman, V., Grana, M. J., Bull, M. T., George, B. P., Boyd, C. M., … & Biglan, K. M. (2013). Randomized controlled clinical trial of "virtual house calls" for Parkinson disease. JAMA Neurology, 70(5), 565–570.
Farombi, T. H., Owolabi, M. O., & Ogunniyi, A. (2016). Falls and their associated risks in Parkinson's disease patients in Nigeria. Journal of Movement Disorders, 9(3), 160.
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McCormack, A. L., Thiruchelvam, M., Manning-Bog, A. B., Thiffault, C., Langston, J. W., Cory-Slechta, D. A., & Di Monte, D. A. (2002). Environmental risk factors and Parkinson's disease: Selective degeneration of nigral dopaminergic neurons caused by the herbicide paraquat. Neurobiology of Disease, 10(2), 119–127.
Michael J. Fox Foundation. (2018). Public policy. Retrieved from https://www.michaeljfox.org/page.html?id=126
Rowe, J. W., & Kahn, R. L. (1997). Successful aging. The Gerontologist, 37(4), 433–440.
Satake, W., Nakabayashi, Y., Mizuta, I., Hirota, Y., Ito, C., Kubo, M., … & Tomiyama, H. (2009). Genome-wide association study identifies common variants at four loci as genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease. Nature Genetics, 41(12), 1303.
Seidl, S. E., Santiago, J. A., Bilyk, H., & Potashkin, J. A. (2014). The emerging role of nutrition in Parkinson's disease. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 6, 36.
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