A Dad With Parkinson's Disease

Hi I am J.T. Wright, an occupational therapy student. I have been given the task of writing a short blog on a topic that I will go over in my Neurological Aspects class. I have chosen to do Parkinson's Disease due to my curiosity. I do not know anyone personally with this complication, but I have always wanted to learn a little more about what it would be like to have it. So, I chose to watch a YouTube video about a 48 year-old father, Andy McDowell, who has the disease (Attitude, 2016). The YouTube video is titled "Dad Living With Parkinson's". 

So, in this video, it basically goes through the life of Andy and his current journey. The majority of the video talks about the everyday life of him. This was very eye opening. Some things that I picked up on was his morning routine. You would think that after all the physical activity throughout the day, his evenings would be tough on him, and they are. However, the mornings are worst due to his medication not being in his system. The mornings for Andy consisted of more severe dyskinesia, a harder time swallowing and talking, and much more pain. Another interesting fact about his morning routine was his medication. He takes a few pills to lessen the symptoms, but one pill has an effect on the other medicine. It allows the medicine to basically last longer. I thought this was very neat. In addition, the video continues to talk about his daily routine by covering certain difficulties such as driving, being a father, and many other things. This is my field, so I paid close attention to not only his physical ability, but also his mental status when talking about it. Andy said he got upset sometimes, but he would cope with it and move on. Talking about physical issues, he says that his therapy sessions are intense as they try and do huge movements to slow down the progress of the disease. While doing and going through all this, Andy has his hopes high as his next step in life could be monumental (Attitude, 2016).

Andy's next step is a possible Deep Brain Stimulation surgery. This involves placing a probe in your brain and electrodes on both hemispheres with batteries under the chest skin. I have never seen the effects of this, but they show an example of it, and it is amazing. The dyskinesia is almost instantaneously stopped. Now, I know this differs with each person, but it is still amazing to know that modern medicine has the ability to produce such great effects. Overall, This video taught me a little bit about a guy whose life shifted at a very early age. I learned certain rehabilitation techniques, obstacles that are faced, and hopeful modern medicine techniques. You never know what someone is going through, and I hope that whoever reads this will take the time to find out the life of someone with Parkinson's disease (Attitude, 2016). 

References: 

Attitude. (2016, July 26). Dad Living With Parkinson's [Video file]. Retrieved                                   from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bp9n60m3AY