Medication aside, there are many ways people living with Parkinson's disease can improve their health and well-being, preserve physical function, ease symptoms and enhance quality of life. Chief among these are getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, staying hydrated and getting an adequate amount of sleep.
Maintain open communication with your loved ones. Prioritize daily tasks. Get outside help as needed for some tasks such as yard work, housecleaning or home maintenance. Regular exercise can help manage stress.
Parkinson's symptoms and stress. Although tremor in particular tends to worsen when a person is anxious or under stress, all the symptoms of PD, including slowness, stiffness, and balance problems, can worsen. Symptoms, particularly tremor, can become less responsive to medication.
Neuroleptics, anxiolytics such as benzodiazepines, and sedatives such as propofol all may play some role traditionally; however, there are some potential drawbacks with each.
Speak openly and honestly about your feelings and hardships to your partner. Keep them aware of any mental or physical changes you might be experiencing. Communicating is harder for people with Parkinson's as symptoms progress, so don't be afraid to talk openly with your partner right out of the gate.
You may experience a range of mental health issues alongside your physical Parkinson's symptoms. These can range from depression and anxiety to hallucinations, memory problems and dementia. Anxiety and depression are two of the most common mental health symptoms that affect people with Parkinson's.
In addition to these motor-related symptoms, non-motor symptoms such as cognitive impairment, mood and behavioral problems, sleep disorders, and constipation can significantly impair quality of life and require careful symptom-based treatment.
Berries, green leafy vegetables, eggs, fish and oil have neuroprotective properties which can reduce cognitive decline and improve memory function. Yogurt, kefir and raw sauerkraut, natural probiotics, can also increase natural dopamine production.
There are five main types of coping skills: problem-focused strategies, emotion-focused strategies, meaning making, social support, and religious coping.
Many people with Parkinson's disease lose energy and experience fatigue, especially later in the day. The cause isn't always known. Pain. Some people with Parkinson's disease experience pain, either in specific areas of their bodies or throughout their bodies.
Happiness can be an elusive thing when battling a chronic disease like Parkinson's. So many things can get in the way of experiencing happiness: pain, deep fatigue, irritability, the time consumed by the disease, and grief accompanying things stolen by the disease.
Depression, apathy and withdrawal from things a person previously enjoyed are another frequent symptom. Anxiety and depression occur in about 40% to 50% of Parkinson's patients at one time or another over the course of the disease.
People with Parkinson's disease (PD) commonly report that acute stress worsens their motor symptoms, such as freezing of gait, dyskinesia and tremor. People with PD also notice that chronic stress seems to worsen non-motor symptoms, particularly anxiety and depression.
Impulse control disorders is one of the non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's. It encompass compulsive, repetitive or reward seeking behaviours, such as hypersexuality (compulsive sexual behaviour), compulsive gambling, shopping, or eating.
Sudden deterioration refers to a worsening of the condition over the course of a few days or even weeks, not necessarily a few hours. It is generally due to one or more causative factors rather than progression of the condition.
The treatment of choice is clonazepam, which is effective in 75-90 percent of cases in the general population.
This mental side of Parkinson's can start with confusion and progress to include hallucinations and dementia. The hallucinations, when coupled with dementia, is certainly one of the most heartbreaking aspects of Parkinson's. “The hallucinations and dementia, and returning to a 2nd childhood.”
Some studies have reported that the average time from onset of Parkinson's to developing dementia is about 10 years. One large study found that about three-quarters of people who live with Parkinson's for more than 10 years will develop dementia.