Beyond Vertical: Unraveling The PSP Enigma

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) is an aberrant type of Parkinsonian disorder that cognates with progressive axial rigidity, vertical gaze palsy, dysarthria and dysphagia. It is supposed to affect movement, gait, balance, speech, swallowing, vision, movements, mood, behavior and cognition. PSP increases as per age and its prevalence is 7% per 1 lakh, as reported. PSP is often misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, however, PSP progresses more rapidly than Parkinson’s. people with PSP develop unique eye movement problems with looking up and down, speech and swallowing problems are much more common and severe in PSP than PD, leaning backwards and extend their neck in PSP (axial rigidity) while in PD -bending happens in forward direction than backward. Tremors are rare for PSP but very common in PD. The three most important primary motor symptoms are: tremors, bradykinesia, and rigidity (parkinsonism). Since this disease is termed as tauopathy, 4R-tau isoforms aggregate into straight filaments and appear as a major tau doublet (tau64 & 69). The differential diagnosis is very difficult for PSP because many neurodegenerative disorders have similar symptoms and very less discrimination between PSP and other disorders. The main objective of our study is to create awareness about PSP and its overlapping symptoms with PD as well as other and other neuro-degenerative disorders. However, based upon detailed investigations about, tau and its isoforms, these clinical features may be distinguished. However, it would require abundant knowledge of the molecular functioning and structure of tau proteins. Keywords: tauopathy, parkinsonism, progressive axial rigidity, neuro-degenerative disorders