Understanding Parkinson's disease
With an Australian diagnosed with Parkinson's disease every hour, a growing number of sufferers feel embarrassed to talk about a condition which is largely misunderstood.
New research has revealed one in every two people battling Parkinson's disease also suffers from anxiety or depression.
Mother of two Glenda Reichman was just 39 years old when her right hand started giving her trouble.
“My left hand was subconsciously taking over the tasks that my right hand should have been doing,” she said.
“After a battery of blood tests and scans [the doctor] proceeded to tell me that I had early onset Parkinson's disease,” she said.
Dopamine is a chemical that sends signals between nerve cells from an area near the centre of the brain.
It is released from neurons in a steady flow which enables the coordinated, smooth movement of our muscles.
But in a Parkinson's sufferer's brain, only a handful of these dopamine cells are produced and released.
However, the trembling that occurs is not because of an undersupply of dopamine, it is because the brain is overcompensating for the shortfall, making the muscles overactive and causing the patient to twitch and shake.
“What we need to do is find out why those cells in the brain are dying and what we can do to stop the process,” neurologist Dr Simon Lewis said.
In Australia, 80,000 people have Parkinson's disease.
Ten per cent of Australian sufferers were diagnosed while in their thirties and twenty per cent are still of working age.
“It's predicted that over the next twenty years there'll be a massive increase in the number of cases that we see,” Dr Lewis said.
Parkinson’s disease is more prevalent in Australia than prostate cancer and cervical cancer.
The idea that this is just an old person's disease is not the only misconception about this condition, which costs Australia a staggering $8.3 billion a year.
“There seems to be a stigma about Parkinson's disease because it can be that people may interpret the signs as someone who's drunk,” Miriam Dixon from Parkinson’s said.
This stigma is one of the reasons actor Michael J Fox, diagnosed at 29 years old, kept his condition secret for seven years.
Similarly, the late Robin Williams took his secret of suffering from Parkinson’s disease to the grave.
But in Glenda's case, she was simply following doctor's orders.
“He advised me to keep it to myself, he said nobody needs to know,” Glenda said.
“Ten years of keeping it secret and hidden became quite difficult.”
Earlier this year, Glenda gathered her friends and ‘came out’ as a Parkinson's patient.
“I told them all about me and I said don't be sad for me, don't treat me differently, just be my friend and be with me on my journey,” she said.
For more information about Parkinson's disease, visit the Parkinson's Australia and Parkinson's NSW websites. You can also like the Parkinson's NSW Facebook page.
