Dennis,

Thank you for your quick response. I did not intend to ask to clarify what
you meant by the tripping and falling when off. What I meant was to use
your observation about tripping to illustrate how different we ,PWP's are
and also how blind for facts a person can be if he is not aware of these
differences and thinks his own observations are the standard for all PWP's,
which you didn't.
Your obsrevation struck me because I have been sometimes so amazed that the
reflexes you talk about may do their job perfectly for me, also when off,
which proves, like Tom said that the faculties for functioning are not
destroyed, but they work only when the disequilibrium that triggers them is
some unexpected thing as in tripping or someone gives me a push. I remember
the examinations before my pallidotomy, when I had  a very bad of, but the
only result of the pushes I got to test my equilibrium  was that I seemed
for a few moments to be on. So my mentioning of your experience with falls
which is or seems to be so different, was not critically. In the last
paragraph of my mail I stressed the importance to feel free to mention any
symptom one experiences, without ending up in a 'tis-'tisn't argument. We
have to accept the variability of the PD symptoms, and not deny that
variability while it does not fit into a theory.

I'll write now about my problems with falling.
I experienced for a couple of months after being diagnosed the falls caused
by a low BP.  It is for me easy to differntiate them from fallings which
have other causes. It is better described as fainting and one actually
loses consciousness for a few moments.
Than the falls that are fitting partly in Tom's model. They happen when i
reach for something and bend a little forward. Picking up an object from
the ground, especially if it is heavy and sitting down on my heels are
triggers of falling.
But these fallings happen when I am altready close to the floor so a big
fall is impossible. Reaching for something causes more bouncing than
falling. All these kinds of fallings are not inflluenced by my pallidotomy
but are more frequent after it than before.
Now the real problem falls.
My most scary falls, that I had before my pallidotomy happened when I was
"of" and started as freezing. I could not move at all on those moments, but
slowly my posture changed and my balance was affected and it ended in a
fall, which ended on its turning my freezing. Or it ended in being rescued.
Needless to say I did not dare to use stairs when alone at home.I now have
a "stair lift" I have made one time a real fall off stairs. Even a PWP is
able to think very much during the time one is in the act of falling. But
after arriving downstairs I felt very relieved, because the only damage
next to bruises was a broken little finger, that in the emergency
ward,where we arrived in the middle of the night in a yoking mood, because
the feeling of relief dominated, turned out to be only dislocated. This
kind of falls don't  happen any more because I don't freeze any more.
I had one other scary kind of falling, which did not dissappear after my
pallodotomy but on the contrary happened after it much more frequent.This
was only temporary and they now happen less than before the surgery. The
worst of them where only a bit less scary and happened when "on".  They
came very suddenly and could happen when I was staying or walking. It fell
as if the only coordination of my muscles was that they all at the same
moment refused to do any work at all. After a fall like that I was unable
to get on my feet again without help. A scary thing of these falls was that
even the defense reflexes a normal person has when falling so he arrives
hands first and not face first on the street stones were also on strike.
So, sometimes I looked like a battered wife with a shiner and people, seing
us together examined Andre doubtfully.
The amazing thing is that nearly all my power to do something myself is
lossed so abruptly, but with the same abruptness regained. If I got a
little help to stand on my feet again, I could immediately walk again as if
nothing had happened.
I sometimes thought it was in that respect exactly the same as another
abrupt loss of funktions with the same abrupt regain with a bit of help.
The start of this symptom goes back to the first years of my PD and does
not grow worse.
It happens when i am in the midst of a conversation talking Very abruptly
I only know the last sentence I said, but my mind seems empty as I try to
remember what I was telling and why. I can't remember what was the object
of the conversation. But asking somebody what we were talking about, a few
words in response are sufficient to remember all: the object of the
conversation, who had said what and what I wanted to say about it, also an
abrupt loss of function which is restored competely with a moment of help.
The relaton between this last symptom and the falling is purely speculative
and might be not existing at all.

Ida

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Vriendelijke Groeten / Kind regards,

Ida Kamphuis                            mailto: [log in to unmask]