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Dear List Friends, For over a year now, I have been silently lurking and sporadically reading the Parkinson list. Today, I have a question for all of you. Since I am the only adult child that lives near my mother, I am the primary care giver for her. A lot has happened in the last few months (some of which I have written about to the Care list t). My Mother has moved from an independent living apartment to an assisted living nursing home to a slightly less assisted-living home. Before the first move, she had two primary care physicians - one a Geriatric specialist and the other just in General Medicine. The Geriatric Specialist was wonderful but moved to another state. I was not pleased with the General Medicine physician as she prescribed Darvon too freely and she is also about 40 minutes away. When she moved to the first nursing home, we had to assign a physician to her that would visit her there and he has followed her to the second place but he is not too much of a doctor. In a few weeks, she has an appointment with a movement disorder specialist but I would like to find her a good general all purpose doctor that we can see fairly quickly and that will listen to her while not being overly free with perscriptions. Although, I suppose now that her medication is being controlled that is less of a problem than it has been in the past. She is 80 years old and can be pretty onery. Her Parkinson's has affected her mildly causing only a small amount of shaking, an unsteady walk (she uses a walker most days) and some depression. I feel that she will listen to the properly choosen physician far more than she listens to me. Also, if I can find one who will take the time to consider whether she is taking the right kind and amount of medication, her quality of life might be greatly improved. I have never had to choose a doctor "from scratch" before. I have a list of recommended names and plan to choose a few to ask further quesitons. What qualities do you think are the most important in a doctor? Do you see a specialist or a general physician? Do you think a Neurologist or the Movement Disoirder Specialist (whom I guess is a specialized Neurologist) is the best choice? I liked the approach of the Geriatric Clinic but they were suppoed to have been only for evaluation and not long term care. I would greatly appreciate any advice that anyone has for me. By the way, I live in the Research Triangle Park area of NC, if anyone has a specific name to recommend. Thanks for your help, Kay Crissman [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]