Stanford PD Community Blog

At first, Hardy-Fanta thought her repeated stumbles had a simple cause: She was distracted. But when she racked up more than 30 falls in a three-year period — some for no apparent reason — she repeatedly asked her doctors whether an undiagnosed medical problem might be causing her to “drop like a log.”

The Stanford Parkinson's Community Outreach team -- Robin, Steven, Denise, Adrian, and Lauren -- would like to wish you a happy first day of spring.  Though we are working from home (as the San Francisco Bay Area is all sheltering in place), we are all available online.  Try to get outside to get some spring sunshine and fresh air.

Here's useful info from the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) on COVID-19 and Parkinson's Disease.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation offered a webinar on Eating Well with Parkinson’s Disease, featuring a panel of speakers including a doctor, a patient with PD, and two nutritionists. They discussed what makes up a “healthy” diet, what specific diet plans are out there, how to foster a healthy diet in everyday living, ways to adjust diet to accommodate medications and symptoms, and the role of vitamins and supplements. We at Stanford Parkinson's Community Outreach listened to the webinar and are sharing our notes.  

The Stanford Parkinson’s Community Outreach team would like to wish you and your family warm and happy holidays!  The office is closed until Monday, January 6th.

Excerpt:  "Now, Dr. [Christian R.] Baumann warns all patients with stimulators never to go into deep water alone.  ... How the devices could interfere with swimming is not known. Dr. Baumann and his colleagues suggested that in some patients the signals may somehow affect a brain region that is crucial for coordinating limb movement. He said other complicated, learned skills might also be affected: Some patients said they could no longer ski after receiving stimulators, and one said he could not play golf anymore." 

Excerpt: "The 83-year-old actor, who announced last year that he is living with Parkinson’s disease, plays a ...lawyer. The film ... doesn’t mask Mr. Alda’s shaking hands but keeps them in the frame, a visual contrast to the slick moves of the sharklike lawyers elsewhere in the movie. The actor ... learned he had the nervous-system disorder in 2015 after his wife Arlene Alda told him he wasn’t swinging his arms when he walked. He began acting out his dreams in his sleep too, another early sign of Parkinson’s. Soon after, Mr. Alda got the diagnosis. To cope, he wedged a pillow between himself and his wife of 62 years to make it harder to reach her in those sleeping episodes and began an exercise regimen to lessen his symptoms that included boxing and marching to Sousa music." 

(We will be closed on Thursday and Friday.)

Do you move around a lot during your sleep? Or have you lost your sense of smell? New insights into Parkinson's disease suggest that these might be the early signs of changes in the brain that mean you are at greater risk of developing Parkinson's.

Today, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors declared April to be Parkinson's Awareness Month.  In April alone, nearly 5,000 people in the US will learn they have Parkinson's.  Robin Riddle with the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) Information & Referral Center at Stanford accepted the proclamation and spoke about the challenges of Parkinson's Disease.