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i love the way motor complications are classified as "late." hmmm let's see... 60 years old is the average age of onset, and life expectancy is almost unchanged by the disease at this point in time - the cdc says life expectancy is 77.6 years on average in the US... levodopa is widely acknowledged to cause motor complicatiions in 50-80% of people who take it within 5 years... 'course the younger you are, the more quickly they are likely to develop, but let's stick to the most widely cited numbers here. so that means that on average, a person with onset at 60 years can expect to remain free of motor complications for 5 out of the 17, on average, years left to him or her, leaving the remaining 12 years, on average - negligible, really - to be consumed by the business of trying to have a life while dealing not only with PD but with the [nearly impossible to manage] management of the side effects of the gold standard for the treatment of this disease. yes, i suppose i could agree with the characterization of the downhill slide starting at year five out of 17 as late - if i didn't have PD. and the fact that i am only 42 and at year five on a dopamine agonist, which is starting to become spotty in its efficacy, makes it just that teensy bit harder. i am all for funding research into therapies that will, we hope, push that downhill mark further and further out, and i think the michael j fox foundation is doing great things, truly. their efforts are transforming the field of pd research and they represent our greatest hope. but the characterization of the onset of motor complications as "late" is just plain inaccurate. "M.Schild" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: May 14, 2006 - May 20, 2006 Micheal J. Fox Foundation awards funding to Israeli company May. 14 - NeuroDerm Ltd., based out of Ofakim, Israel, has been awarded $490,000 by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research. The award, made under the foundations clinical discoveries program, will support clinical work to develop a new transdermal skin patch for continuous delivery of levodopa, the natural precursor of dopamine, which is deficient in Parkinson's disease. The development is innovative, as researchers believe that dyskinesias - disruptive, jerky movements associated with long-term levodopa therapy - result from the sharp fluctuations in dopamine blood levels that occur when levodopa is given orally. NeuroDerm's system is based on a proprietary formulation involving a prodrug, levodopa ester (LDE), which has been able to maintain steady levodopa levels in animal models. NeuroDerm believes that their patch should be able to minimize or even reverse dyskinesias and other disabling late motor complications. "This Clinical Discovery Program grant is part of our focus on speeding highly relevant treatments to people living with Parkinson's disease," said Deborah W. Brooks, president and CEO of The Michael J. Fox Foundation. "We believe that improved delivery through continuous levodopa administration, such as NeuroDerm's prospective patch aims to achieve, could potentially result in a significant improvement in patients' day-to-day lives." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn --------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn Yahoo! Mail goes everywhere you do. Get it on your phone.