The Houston Area Parkinson’s Society (HAPS) hosted a day-long conference for caregivers. One of the lectures was presented by Joohi Jimenez-Shahed, MD, head of the movement disorders center at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She discussed REM sleep disorders, hallucinations, delusions, deliriums, etc. And she provided methods to improve healthy sleep for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). (Though the talk was presented at a caregiver conference, there is nothing caregiver-specific about this talk).

On November 5th PMD Alliance hosted a webinar on How the Brain Progresses with PD.  Neurologist Yasar Torres-Yaghi shared how the pathology of Parkinson’s disease begins in the gut, then progresses to the olfactory bulb before invading the entire brain. 

Although Parkinson’s is thought of as a movement disorder, as the pathology expands throughout the body it affects more than just movement.  Dr. Torres-Yaghi listed several non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s before focusing on common cognitive changes and the neurotransmitter deficits that contribute to them.

On November 12th the Davis Phinney Foundation hosted a webinar on Mental Wellness for Parkinson’s Care Partners.  The speaker was social worker Elaine Book who touched briefly on several aspects of caregiver wellbeing with Davis Phinney Foundation moderator, Melanie Dizon.  Topics broached included ambiguous loss, stress reduction tips to prevent caregiver burnout, communicating about changes brought about by Parkinson’s, self-care during COVID, and more.