Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Dealing With Mom's Parkinson's Disease

My mom has been struggling with Parkinson's Disease for many years now.

Fortunately, she is actually getting better.

The rest of my post gives you a couple of hints and tips that I have discovered to making her life a little easier.

I am not an expert or researcher on this topic. I just focused on helping her with her struggles and her routines. Instead of actually reading about her problems, I decided to focus more on the symptoms, in the hopes of getting a fresh perspective.

1 thing that she struggles with is panic attacks. I am not confident that she is really getting panic attacks, but I decided to use that terminology with her. Overall, her panic attacks are characterized by weakness all over. She cannot walk confidently. Her hand shakes. She cannot breath very well. Her arms and hands seem to have no strength. In that situation, she finds it very difficult to be comfortable in bed, on the couch or on a seat. I got her to sit on a recliner. She can adjust herself, and put her legs up. So far, this seems to help her make it through the panic attack. I doubt that reclining actually makes a panic attack go away. It seems to be the only way that she can get comfortable.

Another thing that she seems to struggle with is breathing deeply through her nose. She used her mouth to breath so much, that her tongue became dry, red and raw. She could not talk very well. So, I tried to coach her. I told her to inhale through her mouth, and then keep her mouth shut, and only let the air come out her nose. I figured that she would eventually discover how to let it out, if she just forced herself to do it. It did seem to work. She eventually became better at breathing in and out through her nose.

I do not know how much my efforts have really helped, but after 2 weeks of constantly being dizzy, she finally had a time when she was not dizzy, and she seems much more alert now. In fact, she seems to be getting non-dizzy times each day.

If anybody has any questions, comments or suggestions, then please comment below.

The end. Thank you for reading!

2 comments:

  1. That's hard; I didn't know your mother had Parkinson's. Does she take medications?
    Paul

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  2. Thanks, for sharing your thoughts, Paul.

    Yeah, she does. I just found out today that she has been taking too many pills each day,, because of her doctor's orders. Even though my dad wanted her to take less, and even though she was improving, the doctor wanted her to take more. The doctor's orders were suitable for a 400 lb woman. My mom is 100 lbs. My dad finally had the sense to reduce the dosage today.

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