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I joined this list six weeks ago because my Mother has Parkinson's Disease (74/12-15). I am writing to ask for opinions of anyone who may have one on what I should do for her now. Some background and I'll try and be brief: My Mother lived alone in small Arkansas town. She was getting along fairly well with PD until the last few years. Mainly balance problems, getting weaker, not too much tremor, swallowing and drooling problems, some incontinence. The main problem was that she was falling a lot, but fortunately only bruises. In Dec 96 she flew alone from Arkansas to Virginia to visit our family for Christmas and did OK, although feebly. In Jan 97, she started to have severe hallucinations and get generally weaker. She went into a program in the local hospital where she was an in-patient for a week then came for out patient day care like activity for two weeks. She was given Haldol in the hospital to control the hallucinations. She had been taking Eldepryl and Amantadine. They also gave her Klonopin (excuse my spellings of drugs, this is all new to me). My wife and I brought her home with us in VA in March, because we felt she could not live alone any longer. She was happy with this. We have three older kids still at home and everyone gets along really well. We took her to a neuro here and he immediately took her off Haldol and put her on Senemet 10/100 and Zyprexa. She could not tolerate the Zyprexa (nausea) and he changed this to Clozaril. She had taken Senemet some years earlier and as she recalled it made her sick and the doctor stopped it. Every since this change in meds, she got continually weaker until she had to be hospitalized. She just seemed to get continually worse. Doctors decided her swallow was so bad she was going to get food/liquids down her windpipe and get pneumonia, so she had a PEG feeding tube inserted in her stomach. This went OK. They also thought she had a pulmonary infection, but this turned out to be a false alarm. They took her off all meds (she was by then only on Senemet). After three weeks, she was released. Still too weak to get out of bed or walk, we got her in a nursing home across the street from the hospital for therapy once she gets stronger. We're still hoping she can come home, at least for a while. All her other medical history is good--strong heart, no abnormalities in blood/urine/stool test, CAT scan OK. But she continues to look worse and worse. She seems to be losing weight with the tube and is always asking about eating (although doesn't seem really hungry). She never complains and always says she is OK. Her voice is very weak, but discernible (aggravated by not having false teeth in most of the time). My hope is that she can start some physical and speech therapy and get stronger. My question is: has anyone seen where a PWP could walk up a flight of stairs, up and down all the aisles in the grocery store, carry on a fairly normal conversation, etc. and then in three weeks time be almost completely helpless? Could this have been the Senemet? Should I take her back to the neuro (or maybe to a different one for a second opinion) and get her back on some type meds (like back to the Eldepryl/Amantadine she was taking some months ago)? Does anyone with PD ever regain enough swallow function to eat (even small amounts supplemented by the tube)? I realize these are vague questions. It's just tearing me up seeing her wither away so quickly thinking maybe she's just not getting proper care. I just don't know what to do. Any responses will be appreciated. Thanks for listening.