# @fixelinstitute on Facebook

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.facebook.com/1275465578125102/posts/430735709266468
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64721111-fixelinstitute-facebook
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/5e4b401161.jpg
- **Posted:** 2022-11-14T19:00:18.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Grace Huff (@GraceHuff3) — https://gondola.cc/GraceHuff3

## Caption

Commonly prescribed for managing PD symptoms, dopamine replacement medications like levodopa can relieve muscle stiffness and slowness for patients. However, care providers have raised questions about the usefulness and effectiveness of dopamine replacement medications for managing facial expressivity and response.

Rachel Schade, T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Movement Disorders and Neurorestoration and graduate research assistant in the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, and Dr. Dawn Bowers, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Lab and professor in the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology and the Department of Neurology, recently published a paper in Movement Disorders Clinical Practice exploring the effectiveness of dopamine replacement medication on facial expressivity in people living with Parkinson’s.

“We found that dopamine medications in fact did improve facial movement and expressions in patients living with Parkinson disease. This is important for two reasons. First, a masked expressionless face is one of the features of PD. It can lead to the impression that individuals with PD are depressed or disinterested in those around them, when this is not the case,” said Schade. “Second, there is some disagreement about the usefulness of dopamine medications for facial expressivity. This research shows that levodopa can be useful for people living with PD and struggling with facial masking.”

Read the full story - https://fixel.ufhealth.org/2022/11/14/does-replacing-dopamine-help-with-facial-masking-in-pd/

#DopamineReplacement #Levodopa #PD #Parkinson #MuscleStiffness #FacialExpressions
UF College of Public Health and Health Professions Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases University of Florida McKnight Brain Institute of the University of Florida UF Health

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## Tags

levodopa, parkinson, musclestiffness, pd, facialexpressions, dopaminereplacement

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