Parkinson’s Disease Rising Among Younger Americans: Early Signs to Know

The first sign was so subtle that Dana Mosunic barely registered it. Her right hand had begun to shake faintly whenever she lifted a glass of water.

It was Caitlin, her 23-year-old daughter, who noticed the tremor before Dana did.

Dana, who was 40 and living in California at the time, dismissed the change. She had recently undergone shoulder surgery and assumed the shaking could be linked to nerve damage.

Several months later, in 2017, another unusual symptom emerged.

During a walk, Dana glanced at her shadow and realized one arm was hanging stiffly instead of moving naturally as she walked.

Her right foot had also started to drag against the pavement. Behind the wheel, she sometimes felt the hamstring in that same leg suddenly tighten for no obvious reason.

Individually, none of the symptoms seemed serious enough to cause alarm. As a mother of two, Dana wondered whether she was simply getting older or becoming more awkward.

For years, she continued with her life without realizing what those changes might mean.

It was not until June 2023 that her primary care doctor referred her to a neurologist. A specialist brain scan was arranged, and Dana expected to return home while waiting for the results.

But before she had even completed the hours-long journey home, the neurologist called. The scan had identified the likely cause of the collection of symptoms she had experienced over several years.

At 45, Dana was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

The news arrived just as Dana was preparing to begin a joyful new phase of her life. She was only three months away from marrying Eric, her partner of almost a decade and a police officer. Meanwhile, her two daughters, then in their late teens and early twenties, had moved out and were attending college while creating independent lives.

Instead of simply looking ahead to the future, Dana was forced to confront a progressive brain disorder for which there is currently no cure.

“It was difficult to take in,” Dana told Our News Outlet. “Especially because, at the time, I felt completely healthy.”

‘There were so many unknowns. At that stage, you don’t know how it’s going to impact you, and that’s scary.

‘Honestly, sometimes I still don’t feel like I’ve fully digested it.’

Parkinson’s disease develops when cells in a small area of the brain called the substantia nigra begin to die.

These cells produce dopamine, a chemical messenger that plays a crucial role in coordinating smooth, controlled movement.

As dopamine levels fall, it gives rise to the hallmark symptoms of Parkinson’s – including tremors, muscle stiffness and increasingly slow or difficult movement.

It is normal to lose some dopamine-producing cells as we age. But in Parkinson’s, that process happens far more rapidly – and symptoms typically do not emerge until around 50 to 60 percent of the cells have already been lost.

More than 90,000 Americans are now diagnosed with Parkinson’s every year – around 50 percent more than previously estimated. By 2030, some 1.2 million are expected to be living with the disease.

Age remains the biggest risk factor, with most patients diagnosed after 60. Genetics can also play a role, with roughly ten to 20 percent of patients having a family history of the disease.

But Dana belongs to a troubling group that experts are increasingly concerned about: people developing Parkinson’s in their 40s and 50s, often with no obvious genetic explanation.

Some are diagnosed even earlier, including award-winning actor Michael J. Fox who was told he had the disease aged just 29 in 1991.

The Back to the Future star, who gave a moving speech at the 2026 Emmys as he picked up an award for his campaigning work, started a foundation in 2001 which has since has raised more than $2.5 billion to help research the causes of the disease.

Scientists increasingly suspect that, for at least some sufferers, the seeds of the disease may have been sown decades before they’re diagnosed.

While there is no single proven cause, mounting research has linked Parkinson’s to environmental hazards encountered in everyday life – including pesticides and air pollution.

The troubling part is that many of these exposures can be difficult to avoid – and the damage may begin years, or even decades, before the first tell-tale tremor appears.

‘You’re always kind of curious as to, was it chemicals or was I near pollution?’ said Dana. ‘Did it have something to do with all the popcorn ceilings in elementary school when I was a kid in the 80s?

‘You really just have zero idea, and there’s no way to figure that out. It’s frustrating.’

The uncertainty has also left Dana worrying about her daughters, Caitlin, 23, and Hailey, 20, and whether they too could one day develop the disease.

‘You want to protect your kids,’ she said. ‘I feel bad because they’re going to watch me go through this, and I don’t want them to be concerned that this is going to be their future too.’

Just three months after her diagnosis, she married Eric in a small, intimate ceremony in Lake Tahoe.

‘It did kind of suck to go into the wedding with that knowledge because the last thing you ever want is to feel like a burden on your partner,’ she said.

‘But it was one of those things where I thought, “I’m going to deal with this after.”‘

Once the celebrations were over, that became much harder to do.

Dana wanted to know what came next. Could she do anything to slow the disease? How long would it be before it affected both sides of her body – or began to rob her of her ability to walk, talk and carry out everyday tasks independently?

But there were few concrete answers.

Unlike many other serious diseases, Parkinson’s has no predictable course. Some patients deteriorate relatively quickly, while others continue living independently for decades.

And while drugs can control symptoms, there is currently no treatment proven to stop the underlying disease from progressing.

‘One of the things I’ve learned over the past three-plus years is that no one experiences this disease the same way, and we all progress very differently,’ Dana said.

‘You don’t really have a roadmap. It’s a lot of talking to doctors and doing your own research.’

So far, Dana’s physical symptoms have remained largely confined to the right side of her body, where she experiences tremors and stiffness.

But some of the symptoms she finds most difficult are invisible.

She suffers bouts of brain fog and, most troublingly, apathy – an overwhelming lack of motivation that she had no idea could be caused by Parkinson’s.

For Dana, something as simple as putting on a load of laundry can suddenly feel as though it requires more effort than it is worth.

‘Apathy was probably my worst one, but I had no idea Parkinson’s was linked to apathy,’ she said. ‘That one just caught me off guard.’

Dopamine does far more than control movement. It is also involved in motivation and the brain’s reward system – which means the loss of dopamine-producing cells can make even mundane tasks feel disproportionately difficult. 

Dana now takes an antidepressant to help with her mood, as well as medication designed to replace some of the dopamine her brain can no longer produce.

The treatment combines two drugs, levodopa and carbidopa.

Levodopa is a substance that’s converted into dopamine once it reaches the brain, helping to ease symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and slow movement, while carbidopa prevents it from being broken down before it gets there.

She also walks regularly and goes to the gym, where she works particularly on maintaining her strength and balance.

Research suggests exercise can be particularly beneficial for people with Parkinson’s, helping to preserve mobility, balance and strength and ease some of the movement problems caused by the disease.

Experts recommend a mixture of aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking or cycling, strength training and exercises specifically designed to challenge balance and agility.

‘This is such a long road ahead,’ Dana said.

Since her diagnosis, she has begun documenting life with young-onset Parkinson’s on TikTok, where she has found a community of other patients facing the disease decades earlier than they ever imagined.

Initially, she worried that talking publicly about Parkinson’s would allow the disease to become her ‘identity.’ Instead, she found that hearing from others in the same position made her feel less alone.

‘It’s a scary time to get a diagnosis like that because a lot of us have younger families,’ she said. ‘A lot of us are in the middle of our careers. It’s kind of a weird place to be, and it can be really scary.

‘Listening to other people share their stories has helped me and given me some insight. The more voices that are talking about this, the better.’

And Dana is increasingly determined to make the most of what she can still do.

She and Eric take regular trips to Disneyland with her daughters and his two sons, ages 20 and 16 – days she treasures all the more because, for now, she can still walk around the park with little assistance.

It is an attitude she encourages other younger patients to adopt.

‘Don’t let it steal the things that you enjoy doing,’ she said. ‘There are always adjustments you can make to continue doing the things you love, and it’s so important to keep those things in your daily life.

‘Spend time building your support system and reaching out to people who are dealing with the same thing. It helps you feel seen.

‘Do whatever you can not to let it steal your joy in life.’