At 02:41 AM 3/5/96 EST, tom graves <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I recently joined the news group (3days ago) upon learning my father had been
>diagnosed
>with PD. The medical profession, and my reading on the internet, confimed that
>there was no definitive test for PD.....My father was prescribed
>Sinemet.....some improvement in tremor of the hand....but his gait became even
>worse...pushed back on the medical profession....family did not believe PD was
>the correct diagnosis....Medical community insisted PD was correct diagnosis..
>My Mother ( who had previously been misdiagnosed, and turned out to have had a
>tumour on her spined).....pushed back hard at the medical profession and
>insisted on a brain scan......bingo.....father now has a brain tumour and is
>scheduled shortly for MRI......
Tom, your father's misdiagnosis is becoming more the norm than many of us
would like to think. Medicine is being driven by the term cost/benefit
ratio. The insurance industry, Congress and Health Maintenance Organizations
use this to justify the use of minimal diagnosis and treatment of any condition.
Cat scans and MRIs recently were removed from the diagnostic process in
Parkinson's disease. Since most diagnosis of Parkinson's is subjective,
tests that are most often negative are ommited because of cost/benefit
ratio. Cases like your father's, slip through the cracks.
Unless the patient has a persistant care-giver, or family to push for more
definitive diagnosis, all is lost....the bean counters have won. Those in
HMOs have to vigorously use the appeals process in their contracts to
receive the treatment necessary. With Medicare/Medicaid, political
intervention on the patient's behalf may be necessary.
Some neurologists, with their bag of archaic looking tools, are the world's
worst communicators. Terms like "relax" or "tell me when" aren't used enough
to inform the patient in what is expected. I had a neurologist, who was a
contractor for Social Security, tell me after a blood pressure check that I
wasn't supposed to shake when that was done.....
Tom, we wish that your father receives the best of care.
John Cottingham "The parkinsn list brings Knowledge, Comfort, Hope, and
Homeboy Friendship to the parkinsonian world."
LibraryH Parkinson's Chat on the Undernet 8:30 PM CST -6 Daily.
If you access the Internet through a provider with a
[log in to unmask] PPP/SLIP account, free IRC chat software is available. WFD
