Inside WPC2026: The Changing Future of Parkinson’s Disease

“To an extent,” he said, Parkinson’s may be “an environmentally driven disease - which makes it, in theory, a preventable disease.”

And yet, despite the scale of the challenge, the congress still operates largely outside mainstream international attention. Outside neurology and patient circles, Parkinson’s rarely generates the same visibility as cancer, dementia or breakthrough biotech fields - even as researchers increasingly describe it as one of the defining neurological challenges of ageing societies.

Yet amid all the discussion of molecular pathways and precision medicine, Bloem repeatedly returned to a far less technologically glamorous subject - exercise.

“I like the metaphor that people with Parkinson’s should lead the life of an athlete,” he said.

The phrase has become central to his message, though he quickly added nuance. Not everyone can train like an athlete. Not every patient is physically capable of intensive exercise programmes. But Bloem argued that movement, routine, sleep, nutrition, stress reduction and self-management may together influence the trajectory of the disease in ways medicine is only beginning to understand.

“Something is better than nothing,” he said.

Then came the line that arguably captured the mood of the congress more clearly than any other.

“I think exercise is the closest to delivering the promise of becoming a disease-modifying treatment.”

After decades of cutting-edge neuroscience and repeated pharmaceutical disappointments, the intervention producing the clearest measurable benefits may still be movement itself.

Dangerous gap

The realism running through WPC2026 extended beyond failed drug development. Bloem also warned against what he described as the dangerous gap between hope and hype, particularly around stem-cell clinics and experimental therapies aggressively marketed online to desperate families.

“There are criminals,” he said bluntly, referring to clinics selling unproven treatments to vulnerable patients and families.

The emotional pressure surrounding Parkinson’s was visible everywhere at the congress. Unlike many scientific meetings, WPC places researchers directly alongside people living with the disease. Conversations about biomarkers and molecular pathways unfolded only metres away from discussions about caregiving, mobility loss and the fear of cognitive decline.

Bloem repeatedly pushed the field towards a broader, more human-centred understanding of Parkinson’s.

“I hate the word patient,” he said early in the session. “We will talk about persons living with Parkinson’s.”

He urged researchers to move beyond treating Parkinson’s purely as a neurological disorder and towards a broader model built around multidisciplinary care, self-management, mental health, caregivers and quality of life.

At one point, the Dutch neurologist introduced what he jokingly called “hopamine”.

“We need not just dopamine,” he said. “We need hopamine.”

The audience laughed. But the underlying message was serious.

Stereotypes

Bloem also challenged persistent stereotypes surrounding the disease - the assumption that Parkinson’s primarily affects elderly men.

“It affects men and women, young and old,” he said. “It spares nobody.”

At one point, he showed a video previously shared with the Queen of the Netherlands: a song built around the refrain, “We need ten million treatments for this disease.”

The phrase captured something essential about the atmosphere in Phoenix. The science surrounding Parkinson’s is becoming more advanced, more personalized and more biologically sophisticated. But it is also becoming increasingly clear that the disease itself may be far more complex than researchers once believed.

“The diagnosis, the etiology, the pathophysiology, the treatment - everything is complex,” Bloem said.

WPC2026 offered reasons for optimism. The science is becoming more sophisticated, the diagnostics more precise and the understanding of Parkinson’s more nuanced. But beneath the technological ambition, the congress also reflected a field learning to speak more honestly about uncertainty.

Not every disease yields quickly to modern medicine. Parkinson’s, researchers here increasingly acknowledge, may be one of them.