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>Hi, just wondering if anyone could give me some suggestions. Just talked to >my mother and she was in tears! Needless to say, this is not a new event, >but I was wondering if there is anything I could possibly say to her to >help. She had spent the afternoon with my Dad (73/7) at the nursing home >and he did not speak to her at all. She thinks it is deliberate, and I try >to tell her it is the disease not him! Get mad at the bloody disease not >the poor person having to live with it! Is this a normal reaction of family >to this problem? Jacklyn Sadly it could be with the elderly of us. As one gets older there can be an increasing difficulty in understanding that one's partner has changed and a sort of dogged unwillingness to accept the facts of change. I recall my motherinlaw's difficulty in accepting that that her Jim had Alkzeimers and was always in a state of wonder at his obtusenes--'Can you imagine what he did today - forgot to turn off the gas ring and that after I told him not to forget.He never listens to me'!!! And now after 35 years of marriage and still going strong my own wife doesn't really want to accept that her David has PD.I still have difficulty in explaining that althoug I might look bloody miserable , I don,t feel miserable- on the contrary the more miserable I might look from the outside the happier I might be on the inside.But women possible more than men often take lack of communication in speech or looks personally.The bonus side for a pd person with this kind of partner is that they are not wrapped in cotton wool and to a limited extent can even learn to make efforts to overcome difficulties in communication although this would be difficult where depression is involved.No doubt this is a problem which has surfaced frequently in the care lists as I feel that out there there must be a lot of married couples, partners etc with real communication problems in contrast to the understanding carers who feature prominantly on this list.Going rather off the subject maybe there should be lists for battered pd wives or battered pd husbands(grinning with difficulty) But being serious Jacklyn I think you have a difficult situation and I think all you can do is to carry on explaining to your mother your own understanding of pd. David Langridge