Test May Predict Cognitive Decline in Parkinson’s

Saw this story this morning, posted on Twitter by my friends at the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

Scientists have found that a test being studied for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease also may predict whether a person with Parkinson’s disease (PD) will develop dementia.  In new research, low levels of a protein known as amyloid b 1-42 in the cerebrospinal fluid of people with PD were associated with an increased risk for dementia.  The results appear in the September 21, 2010 issue of Neurology.

Cognitive decline is one of the most disabling of PD symptoms, and up to 80 percent of people with PD develop dementia.  Certain clinical features of PD have been associated with a higher risk of dementia, including older age, being male, lack of tremor, and more balance difficulties.  Yet there is currently no biomarker — no blood test or brain imaging technique, for example — that can predict the likelihood that a person’s PD will progress with dementia.

Tell ya what… until they get it to the point where I can spit in a cup or they can do a buccal (mouth) swab and tell, then I’ll pass.  I have my OWN predictors going on here…

1.  I was young when diagnosed — 45

2.  I am male.  At least, I used to be.  Haven’t checked lately.

3.  Lack of tremor.  Never had more than just my right thumb.

4.  More balance difficulties.  A strong wind can knock me over.

So, 3 out of 4.

And I’ll go with the other predictors.  I’m having occasional hallucinations (retaining insight, of course), I have REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, and I’m showing signs of executive dysfunction — losing track of what I’m supposed to do in the shower, losing my place in a script and having to listen to what I’ve already recorded to find my place, getting interrupted in a task then having NO IDEA what I was doing before the interruption —  fun stuff like that.

So… I think I’ll just skip the test where they gotta go into my spine to get fluid.

(Cowardly words, for a man who volunteered for brain surgery back in 2007, I realize.  But they’re talking about a NEEDLE!  In my SPINE!)

Today’s Bit of Oddness

After I created the new (and lovely, may I add) video you see at the top of the home page, I did our weekly Rec Therapy Podcast for the Clinical Center.  Whereas I went WITHOUT a script for the YouTube video, I used a script for the podcast.

And I kept losing my place.

Not all that unusual.

But today, when I would stumble over words and have to start again, I would forget just where I was in the script, have to listen to the last part of what I had already recorded, then pick it up where I left off.

I’ve never had that problem before.

And it’s a good thing I gave it a good listen before sending it, because I referred to Tuesday as Thursday.

Now I have to sit up perfectly straight to keep my brain from oozing out of my ears.

Yibble bibble bibble!

Achy Breaky Morning

I guess I shouldn’t sleep on my left side.  Woke up after a real hard sleep with my left arm over my head.  For the moment, I could not roll over onto my back and then on to my right side so I could get up.  Finally managed to get my arm down, used my right arm to push myself over on my back.  Kicked and wriggled over onto my right side, trying not to imagine a group of Greenpeace activists trying to shove a beached whale back into the water.  Used my right elbow to lift myself, then my right arm to push myself into an upright sitting position.

Sat there for a little while trying to get my head together and realized my left neck and shoulder were KILLING me.  Grabbed my cane, rose to my feet.  Stood there to make sure I wasn’t going to fall.  Then hobbled out into the hallway.

It was just after 6 am.  Gail was coming back in from taking out the dogs.  I sent her back to bed with the promise that I’d keep an eye on the knuckleheads.  Off she went.

Sat down at the computer and JEEZ did my neck and shoulder ache.  I must have fallen asleep in that position and just laid there, unable to move, for hours.  In fact, I recall waking up a few times wondering what I was doing on my left side (I usually wake up on my right side), giving a half-assed effort to roll over before giving up and falling asleep again.

Dawned on me that Gail had one of those “Hot Patches” that Shaq sells on the tee-vee.  So I went to put it on.  After my fumbly fingers got the film off the back, the rest of it was a cinch.

Took the ibuprofen down from the shelf, appropriated four of the little brown tablets, grabbed the little green glass next to the sink, popped the pills into the mouth, raised the glass to my lips, and…

Nothing.  I forgot to put water into the glass.  “See,” that sad and ever-shrinking working part of my intellect explained to the rest of my lumbering, stumbling brain,“you gotta PUT water in the glass before there can BE water in the glass.  The water doesn’t magically APPEAR in the glass.  If it DID, you’d be declared MESSIAH — and not some dumpy nearly 56-year old civil servant with Parkinson’s disease seeking early disability retirement.”

“Gawrsh, Mr. Brain,” the rest of my atrophied noodle replied, “Yew shure are smart about stuff.”

I filled the glass, swallowed the pills, staggered back out to my computer and launched into my duties for the day.

Sigh…