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My husband and I are newly subscribed to this list and were asked to give a short bio or who we are and what interest we have in the list. My husband, Mark's, father has had Parkinson's for 25 years or more. He is currently 69 and lost a brother just a couple of years older to Parkinson's a few years back. As we don't know if this could be hereditary or not. . .it seems strange that two in the same family got it! Has this been the experience of anyone else on this list? At one time the doctors suggested it could be due to pesticides used in the family gardening business years and years ago when they were children. My father-in-law has annual checkups in Rochester and has his medications constantly monitored and changed as the need arises. At one point he was eligible for a blind study of a new medication, but decided not to participate due to the lengthy drive back and forth to Rochester from here. . .Iowa. He has just lost his wife to cancer 2 weeks ago and now we are going to have to place him in a nursing home. This is very difficult as he is between independent living and needing constant care. His loving wife was devoted to him 24 hours a day and maybe did TOO much for him! He seems to be getting quite confused at times and we know he has been under much stress due to his wife's illness and death. However, we are hearing more and more that Parkinson's is connected to Alzheimer's in some way. Does anyone else have any information on this? We have recently found a speech therapist to take my father-in-law to who helped him by giving him an alphabet chart on which he is to point to the first letter of each word before he says it. It slows him down and enables the rest of us to get an idea of what the word is going to be. The results were miraculous!!! He speaks loud and crystal clear when using the chart. . .but has made it more of a "magic trick" to amaze his newest audience with and then puts the chart away! This is very frustrating for the rest of us as we have all been struggling with trying to understand what he has been saying for the past 20 years or so! We don't know if he is now doing this for attention or if he's just lazy! Any one else go through this? He won't be able to communicate with the elderly people in the nursing home without the chart because they will never be able to understand him! Well. . .so as not to make this any longer, I will end for now. We are looking forward to any advice or information anyone on this list can offer. It's nice to know the problems of others in this same situation. . .makes us not feel so alone! :-) Mark & Tammy Gargano [log in to unmask] Mark Gargano Fort Dodge, IA e-mail: [log in to unmask]