Information and actions for the relief and cure of Parkinson 's disease  |  contact/imprint  |  data privacy

Parkinson's disease is thought to be incurable...

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This website is operated by the Förderverein Parkinson-Heilung e.V. (Association for the Furthering of Healing Methods For Parkinson's Disease), a charitable organization registered in Germany. It provides information on the research and application of therapies for the alleviation and cure of Parkinson's disease.

Currently our focus is on supporting "Summit for Stem Cell" in San Diego, the world's leading research project for transplanting autologous dopamine neurons into patients with Parkinson's disease:
  • A new cell replacement therapy based on each patient's own cells is being developed by a non-profit organization.
  • This non-profit-organization needs financial support for their research and clinical trials so that patients can be treated with this method as soon as possible.
  • You can find detailed information on this project here.
We are therefore asking for kind donations for this project. We appreciate each contribution. It would be fantastic if you can afford to donate a larger sum!

 

Donate now!

Current Research

  • Research and development of healing methods for Parkinson's disease has progressed considerably. Start with our overview.
  • Two examples for largely healed Parkinson's disease through cell transplantation: more...

Online shopping and donating - without extra costs!

Simply start your online shopping via  Gooding or WeCanHelp and donate - with no additional costs! (learn how...)

Current blog posts

Does a type of Parkinson's medication increase the dementia risk?

Researchers at the University of Nottingham evaluated the cases of a total of 59,769 dementia patients from the central disease registry in the United Kingdom and those of 225,574 statistically similar individuals without dementia diagnosis.
Read more ...

Summit4StemCell president talks about her upcoming cell replacement therapy

On February 27th 2019, ABC10-News broadcasted a portrait of the project Summit4StemCell. Jennifer Raub, who is the president of the charitable SummitForStemCell Foundation, talks about her Parkinson's disease and the clinical trial of the unique cell replacement therapy, which is close at hand.

Read more ...

First implantation of reprogrammed stem cells into the brain of a Parkinson’s patient

In October 2018 in Japan, for the first time in the world, a Parkinson’s patient was treated with reprogrammed stem cells. The man in his 50s was implanted at the University of Kyoto with dopamine progenitor cells, previously extracted from the cell material of an anonymous donor.

Read more ...

Frequently asked questions from users of this website

What is Parkinson's and what forms are there?

Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a gradual loss of the brain's ability to produce the messenger dopamine. It is also called idiopathic Parkinson's Syndrome (idiopathic = of unknown cause). Other forms of Parkinsonisms are, for example, the drug-induced Parkinson's syndrome, which can be caused by certain drugs (e.g. methamphetamine), or the psychogenic Parkinson's syndrome, which is triggered by a shock.
This website is mainly concerned with Parkinson's disease (idiopathic Parkinson's syndrome) as the most common form of Parkinsonism. For more information about Parkinson's disease, click here .

What are the donations used for?

The  donations and proceeds from events are used to support promising research projects for the development and testing of healing procedures for Parkinson's disease.
The cuurent focus is on supporting of cell replacement therapies. The aim of this therapy is to replace the dead cells in the brain of Parkinson's patients with healthy cells as far as possible so that dopamine is again produced in the right places. In this way the disturbances caused by the dopamine deficiency can be alleviated according to current knowledge up to full recovery, depending on the stage of the disease and the other physical condition.
The cell replacement therapies form a pillar in the field of healing procedures and the development is already well advanced ( more ... )

Who runs this website?

This website is operated by the Förderverein Parkinson-Heilung e.V., a German charitable association with the goal to support research into healing therapies for Parkinson's disease (see also imprint). The members of the association are made up of Parkinson's patients, their relatives and friends as well as other supporters.

Is Parkinson's disease really curable?

To date, only a few people have been cured of the motor disorders caused by Parkinson's disease (see, for example, here).
So, currently there is no broad-based, effective cure for Parkinson's disease.
Thanks to a number of ongoing research projects, however, there is reason to hope that this will change in the foreseeable future.
A very promising area of research is cell replacement therapies. They aim to remedy the deficiency of the messenger dopamine in the brain of Parkinson's patients using newly cultured cells. If this is successful, the recipients of these replacement cells can again produce enough dopamine in their brains, thus alleviating or even remedying the severe symptoms of dopamine deficiency. These symptoms include, but are not limited to, serious motor disorders (including tremors, dysmotility, stiffness) as well as other physical and mental disorders. A second positive effect of cell replacement therapies is presumably that the Parkinson's drugs can be reduced or even completely discontinued. This would also mitigate their sometimes serious side effects.

The extent to which the cell replacement therapies currently being investigated are effective will only be known after the research projects have entered the clinical phase (i.e., are being tested on humans). However, based on the results already available, it is likely that they will have beneficial effects:
  • the transplantation of foetal cells into the brains of people with Parkinson's disease, as well
  • animal experiments transplanting newly grown human dopamine cells.

In particular, for Parkinson's patients who are otherwise physically still healthy, cell replacement therapies could mean the return to a largely normal life. 
It has to be noted, however, that the cause(s) for dopamine cell death in the brain, which led to the onset of Parkinson's disease, are different for each individual affected.
Therefore, it is likely that these original causes are not cured by cell replacement therapies. Thus, cell replacement therapies, when used alone, have only a limited duration of action since the transplanted cells can also slowly die off after a certain time. However, according to current knowledge the duration of the activity can be very long (many years up to several decades).

Thus, cell replacement therapy is "only" one of several pillars in the cure of Parkinson's disease. For those affected, however, it is very important, because this therapy can significantly improve the quality of life.
Other pillars include:

  • identification and removal of the initial pathogenic factors;
  • dispersal of the already formed alpha-synuclein deposits and the prevention of new formations.

Why should I donate or contribute?

The Förderverein Parkinson-Heilung e.V. as the operator of this website has a clearly defined objective: Promote research and development of a small number of promising healing therapies for Parkinson's therapy, in order to contribute to a breakthrough as soon as possible. To this end, the association has developed relevant expertise and established personal contacts with leading research teams around the world.
This clearly distinguishes us from other Parkinson's organizations, whose focus, for example, is on the organization of local self-help groups, etc.
The Förderverein is very slim and thus has minimal overhead costs, which are largely paid for by the members of the association out of their own pocket. Therefore, the funds generated by donations, revenues, etc. go directly to research.
We deliberately refrain from renting office space, arranging expensive events, paying salaries, etc., which is common in other Parkinson's organizations.
We want only one thing: to contribute to making Parkinson's disease as manageable as possible for as many sufferers as possible.

Are the statements made here credible?

Yes, because the information provided on this website is based on a thorough analysis of the current, published state of research. Important sources are quoted so that interested readers can understand the information provided and the conclusions drawn from them.

Why is this website called "parkinsonheilung.de"?

This web address, which means "Parkinson cure" in English, was chosen since
  • here an overview is given of promising research projects for the development and testing of healing procedures for Parkinson's disease;
  • those interested can find ways to support this research and thus contribute to the realization of the dream of all affected persons that there will be effective healing procedures for Parkinson's disease as soon as possible;
  • it is important from a cognitive psychological point of view to clearly identify a goal (in this case, "Parkinson cure") in order to mobilize energy to achieve it (the other way around, the constant mentioning that Parkinson's disease is thought to be incurable is paralyzing and discouraging);
  • this website is run by the Förderverein Parkinson-Heilung e.V., for which "parkinsonheilung.de" is an appropriate web address.

Can I participate here and if so, how?

Yes, cooperation and support is very welcome!
The ways in which you can participate include the following:
  • Donate an sum
  • Make this project more popular and raise funds for it, for example in your club or your company
  • Editorial contributions related to the development of healing procedures on this or other websites.
  • Share this project and our fundraising campaign in your friends and family and the public, e.g. via your Facebook contacts (-> our Facebook page ), Internet forums, blogs, e-mails, newsletters etc.
  • Making a donation to our association and its mentioning in the seasonal greeting cards as an alternative to gifts for your customers, club members, relatives, etc.
  • By starting your online shopping via Boost or Amazon Smile or Gooding and thereby making a donation to us with no additional cost for you (read more... )
  • More creative ideas from you ....!
Feel free to contact us (contact form).