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Fighting Fatigue: Don’t Empty the Well of Resources

Keeping adequate reserve in our personal reservoir of energy helps us to be available for the lucid times. We need to minimize fatigue and add richness to life despite living with a chronic illness like Parkinson’s disease (PD). Managing the well of resources involves not only filling up the…

Anxiety Averted Riding the Rails With the Red Cap Service

For many of us with Parkinson’s disease, traveling can trigger anxiety, but a successful trip is still possible. While extra planning, extra time, and good shoes are a great place to start, sometimes they are not enough. The method of travel that suits our needs may require asking for help, or as we…

Learning to Be a Lucid Window Washer

“Just sit and watch him,” said his wife, with affirming nods from their children. They were heading out to enjoy some respite from the demands of caring for a terminally ill family member. It was the same set of instructions my hospice supervisor gave me about spending time with this…

Focused Ultrasound in Parkinson’s: A Conversation With Arjun Desai, MD

Last November, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Exablate Neuro to treat motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease patients, as reported by Parkinson’s News Today‘s Patricia Inacio, PhD. Created by medical device company Insightec, Exablate Neuro is a magnetic resonance, image-guided, focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) system that can treat tremors…

This Parkinson’s Awareness Month, Let’s Focus on Hope

Since April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month, I thought it would be a great opportunity to write about reasons to have hope for people affected with the disease, as well as their caregivers. My sister Bev has stage 3 Parkinson’s (PD) and was diagnosed in 2017. She currently experiences hand…

Food and Parkinson’s: Relearning How to Eat

Relearning how to eat with Parkinson’s disease is more than being mindful of mouth movements. It requires careful observations of the motivations behind what food to eat, when, and how much. Relearning how to eat required me to examine the drive to start eating and the desire to stop…