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My husband Michel who was diagnosed with PD at age 46 in '83 has had
major problems in the last couple of years.  Hallucinations, paranoia,
drug holiday, seven months in hospital/rehab, now a bit over a year at
home, wheel-chair bound, with aides whenever I'm at work.  PT over the
summer helped physically, but mentally it's not good.  He thinks he's
better than he is, tries to walk, falls, etc.  Is never completely lucid.

Recently our neurologist had us see a movement disorders specialist from
Rush-Presbyterian, who said he thought Michel didn't have standard PD.
Maybe PSP, but not all the symptoms match.  So now we (our children and
I) are trying to read up on PSP.  Some symptoms match well:  no tremor,
speech and swallowing problems, sloppy eating, difficulty reading (don't
know if this difficulty is from vision problems or mental problems).
(John Cottingham sent me archive material on PSP, which is why I know
some of this.  Thanks, John.)  But his gait problems were the typical PD
gait problems, moving too quickly and falling forward, rather that what
is described in the PSP material as a backward leaning problem.

Until recently we ingored anything about the less frequent variations on
the PD theme, but now I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with experience
in this area.

Teresa Marcy
South Bend, IN