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Hello Judith ON Tue, 8 Nov 1994 Judith Kulig <[log in to unmask]> wrote the following--- <<My aunt (my mother's sister) has opca (olivio ponto cerebellar atrophy) <and recently had a stroke. She has now receiving home care but the nurses <had never heard of the disorder and I wondered if anyone has a basic article <on this disorder. I tried several years ago to locate research related <to this and could only find some work done in Japan, I realize that often <neurological disorders are lumped together and that may be part of my <problem. I checked in my information files and books and you are correct. There is really very little information on the 15-20% of 'Parkinsonism' that isn't the condition called Idopathic Parkinsons(IP). In this 15-20% of 'Parkinsonism' there are a number of different conditions. 'OPCA' is one, Multiple System Atrophy 'MSA' is another, Progressive Supra Nuclear Palsy, 'PSP is a third, and there are several others. Duvoisin says that they are called Parkinson's Plus(PP) because there are other symptoms as well as the usual Parkinson assortment. Most of the written material I have concentrates on diagnosis and how to tell these conditions apart. Grimes says that in some of these conditions the Parkinson symptoms may respond to the drugs used for IP. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Roger C Duvoisin, Parkinson's Disease A Guide for Patient and Family 3rd ed. Raven Press, New York. J D Grimes, Parkinson's Disease One Step at a Time, Parkinson's Society of Ottawa-Carleton, Ottawa Canada. I think that people with PP would need much the same kind of care as people with IP---with some extra help to ease the extra symptoms. There is an excellent new (1994) article on Parkinson's by C Marsden in the UK 'Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry' Maybe a centre for OPCA research has started up somewhere? Anne Rutherford [log in to unmask]