Older people go through a lot while they deal with the many diseases that take over their lives in the later years. While there are treatments to cure many of the diseases, there are some like Parkinson's disease that do not have a cure. However, an early diagnosis can often help in its treatment over the years. In a recent study, it was found that older adults who start to get bad dreams or nightmares while they are sleeping could be showing the earliest signs of Parkinson's disease. 

The study, published in eClinicalMedicine, showed that in a cohort of older men, individuals experiencing frequent bad dreams were twice as likely to be later diagnosed with Parkinson's as those who did not.

Previous studies have shown that people with Parkinson's disease experience nightmares and bad dreams more frequently than adults in the general population, but using nightmares as a risk indicator for Parkinson's has not previously been considered. "Although it can be really beneficial to diagnose Parkinson's disease early, there are very few risk indicators and many of these require expensive hospital tests or are very common and non-specific, such as diabetes," said lead author Dr. Abidemi Otaiku from the University of Birmingham, UK.