Speaker Meeting, 6.15 for 6.30pm
Mon, Nov 12th 2018 at 6:15 pm - 8:00 pm
Our speaker, on the left, was Fiona Cox, a Parkinson's UK Volunteer Speaker for Wiltshire
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Fiona Cox started her talk by telling us that Parkinson's disease (PD) is a fluctuating neurological disease caused by the loss of dopamine. Dopamine is an organic chemical that plays several important roles in the brain and body. Symptoms appear when 80% of dopamine has “gone”. There is no cure for PD.
The main symptoms are tremor, stiffness and slowness of movement plus many others less well known. No two people will have exactly the same symptoms and symptoms can change daily. 1 in 350 people in the UK will suffer from PD – mainly over 50s. Every hour someone is told they have PD.
Treatments are medication, therapies (such as speech and physiotherapy) and surgery (rarely used). Fiona talked of the challenges of medication.
Parkinson’s UK support sufferers and their families through their website, a confidential helpline and local groups. Swindon’s local group offer a respite programme which is sponsored by Nationwide. Parkinson’s UK endeavour to empower people to take control of their own life.
In the last five years 136 research projects, including stem cell research, has been carried out at a cost of £25 million. Currently 6000 are on a list as brain donors to help research.
The aim of Parkinson’s UK is to find a cure for PD.
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