What does early intervention look like for Parkinson’s (besides lifestyle changes)?
As far as I know the treatment for Parkinson’s is basically lifelong dopamine pills, which of course you build a tolerance to and which lose effectiveness over time, requiring ever higher doses. Meaning once you start on them, the ticking countdown of your brain’s lifespan starts as well.
"There is evidence to support the use of DBS in less advanced PD and that it may be appropriate for earlier stages of the disease than for which it is currently used. The improving short and long-term safety profile of DBS makes early application a realistic possibility. "
Lifestyle changes, on the other hand, mostly meaning exercise, significantly and reliably slow the onset and development of symptoms.
We have talked to many different Parkinson's experts around the world, and I think at this point the only thing she seems to think really makes a difference is lots of exercise. She completed halting any evidence of the progression of the disease for about 5 years with exercise, but it will not last forever.
So completely serious, if you get flagged for Parkinsons, and start getting in amazing shape, you have a good chance of really helping yourself get more good years.
Fingers crossed for ongoing research to finally find some way to stop or reverse the damage in another way! (not medical advice)
In terms of reversing the damage, look into photobiomodulation (PBM) aka red light therapy. In "Improvements in clinical signs of Parkinson's disease", Liebert et al in 2021, she shows improvement in all symptoms including cognition, which is one of preciously few such results I've found in my extensive search of the literature[1]. Caveats are that this was a proof-of-concept study with n=6 only and that the red light helmet is somewhat expensive if you want to try it. There's a Canadian company that makes one for above $2000 (modern, very sci-fi thing), and a more hackerish version from an Australian company for ~$700 (pairs of diodes on aluminum bands you have to finish assembling yourself).
[1]: At least which are actionable for the public. There are tons of trials but good luck getting in early unless you can donate a new library to the university! Gene therapy, stem cell therapy, GDNF, drugs that target alpha-synuclein are all promising but not yet accessible. PBM is something you can do today and since mitochondrial dysfunction is a leading hypothesis in the pathogenesis of PD, the treatment fits.