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Emily m'dear... when assisting a loved one who's living with Parkinson's (or ANY chronic disease!), there IS no such thing as being "too aggressive" in dealing with their physicians and/or medical support team!! Generally, when a Parkie is in the condition you mom appears to be in, they've no longer got the stuff... the will to near-daily fight for themselves... it takes to continually battle with busy medical personnel. Heck... (thinking of own problems in fighting to regain disabled status with Social Security Disability Insurance) even for a fairly on-the-ball Parkie, continually staying on top of the assorted support services can sap whatever little physical AND emotional energy we might have over the months and years of living with the disease (and fighting IT, too). Sooo.. my own belief and attitude when it comes to dealing with medical support personnel AND physicians (ESPECIALLY when the PWP is unable to be their own advocate) is to automatically presume that very few of the medical staff will know didldy (even if they THINK they do!) about current PD treatment and medications, and ONLY absolute vigilance by caregivers and/or family, AND the PWP if possible, is the order of the day. EVERY day! Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Emily Rosenthal Sent: Friday, October 03, 1997 7:28 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Amantadine? Joining you now from Boston, temporarily, where Mom is at acute rehab getting the pt (&ot/neuro) assessment I was so urgently trying to arrange before, but didn't know what to ask for. It angers me that neither the assisted living nursing staff nor her neurologist suggested such a thing or anything when made aware of her sharply-increased falling. (In fact her neurologist was one of those who said PT won't do any good for someone with Parkinson's.) And anger is a good place to put some of my overwhelming emotion. It took another bad fall, banging her head on a cabinet, to emergency room social worker, to get her this attention. Now tho' all symptoms are not surprisingly much worse with new ones to boot. Please, all, try to avoid these falls. She frequently doesn't know where she is, has short-term memory problems, can't walk or sit on her own, thinks the current Jewish holiday is Passover, etc., but still has her sense of humor thank God. Also now has "intentional" tremor, where no tremor existed before (but didn't I read that Parkinson tremor is "at-rest" type?) The medical team here seems very attentive, but won't change any drugs until complete assessment. I have contributed info on dates Amantadine was started (9/20, I was with her 9/20-22) and increased (9/27) and log from assisted living residence of times Mom fell/called for emergency help. Since she moved there 9/12, their first record of emergency call is 9/24, once a day until 9/27 then twice, then 4x 9/30 including the last one. Also nauseous, not eating and vomiting half of 9/29. armed with log and side effect info Kathrynne Holden supplied (thanks so much), I'm going in a little more aggressively. I could use some feedback on how assertive to be on this subject. thanks all. emily cg/Mom 76, 2-3 months ([log in to unmask])