> From: Camilla Flintermann
> Jim Slattery-- welcome to the list--and thanks for the tribute to wives!
:-)
> Your new and exciting career sounds great.
> I wonder what it is about wives, anyway? Maybe some special ESP about
> what husbands need?
Of *course* wives have ESP! :-) Without it, they wouldn't be effective
wives (or mothers, for that matter). :-)
But seriously, I think the position is that many people get stuck in a job
that doesn't suit them, but that they feel unable to leave, particularly
if they have a large mortgage, or the local employment situation is
parlous.
Then along comes PD, or some other disorder that precludes you working
full time, so one way or another, you and your employer part company. In
a way, this could be termed "early retirement".
And just like retirement, many men (and previously career-oriented women)
find themselves with time on their hands, together with a perceived loss
of social status. ("What do you do for a living?" - "Oh! I have retired
medically unfit." - "Uh huh." <sidles away> End of conversation.
Since our team has been carrying out the interviews and collecting the
survey forms, we have seen many things that have dismayed, disappointed
and depressed us. In order to maintain "scientific detachment", we cannot
interfere. But what a tragedy that good people once valued by the
community are now seen as a burden, both by that community, and often by
themselves and their families.
Dear carers, don't let this happen! I know it is much more difficult when
the "parkie" is elderly and/or frail, but I am talking about people 40-50
years of age who have given up on life!
The research team of which I was a part, studying the possible beneficial
effects of computer games on the victims of strokes, found some amazing
results. Our favourite story was that of a lady in her 80's who had been
a schoolteacher before her retirement. When she volunteered to join the
group, she spent much of her day in a distorted pose in a wheelchair, but
still trying to take in as much of the world as was available to her in
the nursing-home.
She was unable to speak, or write, and so had not really communicated with
her family, who no longer lived in the district, for over three years.
By the end of the research, she had written to her grandchildren using a
simplistic word processor, had become the champion game player, designed
and sent computer generated Christmas, birthday, Easter, and other cards,
and had regained much of her posture, and the use of both hands!
This was not a clinical study. Like Topsy, "it just grew", having started
out to find something to interest the sufferers. But the results were so
encouraging, it has continued as a form of therapy at that and other
nursing homes.
Cynics may say that the sufferers only regained some of their mental and
physical faculties because of the extra attention shown to them. Perhaps
so, but like Galileo, I say "...and yet, it moves".
Jim
