Parkinson’s Disease Blogs

Yep, its that time of the year again. April is here and so is Parkinson's Awareness Month.Some of you probably think I forgot, but nay, nay! I haven't forgotten my annual poem I always do this time of the year. This one is a little different of a poem, that I pray ends on a happier note than at first ... read more

“Perchik: Money is the world’s curse.Tevye: May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover.” –  Fiddler on the Roof   As I began receiving entries for the billion dollar contest over the last month, I started thinking about what I would have submitted. The whole contest has been an interesting thought experiment and it has helped me ... read more

  The results of the billion dollar writing challenge are in! Thank you to all who participated, we received a lot of outstanding essays that have already sparked some interesting discussions about the future direction of Parkinson’s disease research. But, without further ado, here are the winners as selected by the steering committee for the upcoming Revision vs. Reconstruction Symposium…   ... read more

Above is the Discoveries Monument on the north bank of the Tagus River in Lisbon, Portugal. It was built in 1960 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Prince Henry the Navigator, who is shown at the front cradling a small sailing vessel. It memorializes what for my money is the most enthralling and influential period in the ... read more

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.“ William James “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” Jim Ryun Part 2 of Parkinson’s Awareness Month is Dedicated to Exercise:Introduction to Parkinson’s:What is Parkinson’s Disease? Parkinson’s usually presents as a motor system disorder that results from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells. Parkinson’s ... read more

“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.” Hippocrates “Patients should have rest, food, fresh air, and exercise – the quadrangle of health.” William Osler Introduction: April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. I am convinced of the benefit of exercise ... read more

The Medtronic DBS generator in my chest has a battery life span that varies depending on my individual settings. The higher the settings needed to control your Parkinson's symptoms, the shorter the life span. My battery is over four years old and still doing good. Others I know had to have theirs replaced after two years. Many don't realize you can check the ... read more

“Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.” Victor Hugo “Never, never, never give in!” Winston S. Churchill Perseverance Defined: <per·se·ver·ance /ˌpərsəˈvirəns/ noun> I really like the description given by vocabulary.com, “Perseverance is not giving up. It is persistence and tenacity, the effort required to do something and keep doing it till the end, even if it’s hard. With that definition in mind, here ... read more

  The Challenge In 500 words or less, describe how you would spend a billion dollars for the sole purpose of accelerating the production of knowledge about Parkinson’s disease and/or the translation of that knowledge into disease modifying therapies?    Prizes The top three entries will receive free registration and hotel accommodations for the upcoming Revision vs. Reconstruction Symposium in Toronto from ... read more

Mariette Robijn It’s not really sustainable, having a sports coach with Parkinson’s. I mean: how on earth will you be able to get around 2 years from now? You’ve got a disease that’s only going to get progressively worse. And, I’ve seen no end of older people with dementia. That doesn’t apply to you lot, obviously. But […] The post ... read more

It is an age old question, when a system fails again and again to tackle the problems it needs to solve to move forward, is it better to continue with attempts at incremental change or should we blaze a new trail and adopt novel ideas aimed at taking the system in a new direction? That is the overarching question faced ... read more

  “We – the current generation – have a moral responsibility to make the world better for future generations.”  — Dr. Priscilla Chan   Last week, over 100 scientists came together at a remote resort in Northern California for the first general meeting of one of the most ambitious projects in the history of medical science – the Chan Zuckerberg ... read more

“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” Calvin Coolidge “The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.” Abraham Lincoln Introduction: Recently, Jeff Keegan asked me if I had seen the paper by Gil-Martínez et al., an established Parkinson’s research group in Spain (click here to ... read more

Howdy, everyone. I'll get to the bulk of this post right after I update everyone on how things have gone so far. I'll try and keep this part short. No, I'm not going to go over anything here but PD progress.I recently had a visit with my new Movement Disorder Specialist. His name is Dr. Aaron Haug (I believe I've ... read more

“The scientific focus of our lab is to understand the mechanisms involved in the earliest stages of neurodegenerative disease in order to deliver therapeutic targets with the greatest potential to prevent dementia and Parkinson’s disease. We are based in the newly established UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at the University of Cambridge. UK DRI is a collaborative, inter-disciplinary Centre, ... read more

“Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.” Bob Dylan “You feel your strength in the experience of pain.” Jim Morrison An Aging Population with Chronic Pain: The definition of chronic pain is pain that continues beyond the expected time of healing. Chronic pain can increase frailty, and it’s linked to falls, sleep disruption, depression, anxiety, and reduced physical ... read more

Omotola Thomas, a self-proclaimed “reckless optimist”, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in 2016, at 35. Although born and raised in Nigeria, she has also lived in America, South Africa, and most recently, England, where she currently resides with her husband and two children. While in America, she obtained both her bachelor’s degree (in Systems Engineering) and her master’s degree ... read more

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s Disease arise when particular proteins accumulate that are not folded properly. Prof. Rubinsztein’s lab’s research goal is to understand the links between these diseases and autophagy — the bulk recycling process that degrades proteins and particular parts of the cell. He currently focuses on: understanding how autophagy can be induced using several animal ... read more

(The following was reviewed and edited by Prof. Alberto J. Espay and is based on his paper in Neurology released today, February 12th, 2019)    Have you heard the joke about the drunk looking for his keys? If not it goes like this… “A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the ... read more

A Brief Defense of Neurology by Prof. Andrew Lees   The notion that non-motor symptoms were ignored by practising neurologists until recently is a myth. Although it is true that the scales used to evaluate potential new treatments in Parkinson’s disease focused predominantly on motor handicap and its impact on everyday activities like dressing, feeding and bathing, James Parkinson mentioned ... read more

Prof. Andrew Lees is a Professor of Neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and an advisor to the UK Medical Research council. From 1985 to 2010 he was the most cited investigator in Parkinson’s Disease research. This is my second interview with Prof. Lees. Click here to read the first one.   Your recent paper titled “Prognosis and Neuropathologic Correlation ... read more

Good morning readers from sunny San Francisco, (actually it has been kinda cloudy and rainy here, though I can’t complain compared to the winter in much of North America) Just wanted to let you know that things are starting to get pretty busy for me and I might not be able to post as often as before. What started off ... read more

“Contentment is natural wealth.” Socrates “Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” Melody Beattie “Mindfulness is the miracle by which we master and restore ourselves.” Thich Nhat Hanh Contentment, Gratitude, and Mindfulness: Living with Parkinson’s has brought me a lot; yes, it’s a curse, yes, it peaks his head into ... read more

After almost two years of editing, the Lights, Camera, Action video my Wonderful Husband and I did about Medtronic DBS therapy for Parkinson's disease is finally available to be viewed. Click to play:I had watched some of the other Patient Stories online and was expecting mine to be 1 or 2 minutes long. I wondered which parts of the hours and hours ... read more

“The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.” Sir William Osler “Listen to your patient, he is telling you the diagnosis.” Sir William Osler Précis: The medical term used for excessive drooling is sialorrhea [si·al·or·rhe·a (sī-ăl′ə-rē′ə)]. Hockstein et al. said, “Sialorrhea (drooling or excessive salivation) is a common problem in neurologically impaired ... read more