Goulburn Evening VIEW Club was pleased to welcome Gill O'Connor to its August meeting.
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Gill spoke to us about her family's journey with Parkinson's Disease (PD). Her husband Michael was diagnosed at only 48 years of age, almost 20 years ago. As his father had the disease he recognised many symptoms which helped with an early diagnosis. To enable him to continue working, he received acupuncture and herbal medicine for several years.
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As the disease progressed however, he was forced to retire at 52 and they built a wheelchair accessible house. The capabilities of a person with PD changes day by day, hour by hour, at times the body will not do what the brain wants it to do. The tremors are difficult and tiring. "Keep active" was the most important advice, apart from regular medication. Michael continues to play golf. He also took up gardening when he retired.
In 2010 Michael underwent deep-brain stimulation, which was a full-day surgery. Firstly, while the patient is awake they drill into the skull and position electrodes into the brain. Then, under anaesthesia, a battery is inserted into the stomach with leads attached to the electrodes. This was very successful and gave him his life back.
Since then the family has travelled extensively and walked the Milford Track and walked around Mont Blanc - an extremely challenging 180km, 10-day effort even without Parkinson's.
Gill and Michael started a Parkinson's Support Group in Goulburn 18 years ago and after much fundraising, hope to secure the services of a full-time specialist Parkinson's nurse in the near future.
Six and a half million people worldwide, 80,000 in Australia suffer from this disease which has no known cause, risk of it developing increases with age, however 20 per cent of people diagnosed are under 50. Somebody in Australia is diagnosed every seven minutes. There is no cure.
Kathy Jeffrey thanked Gil for a most informative talk.
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