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what is "the pd internet mailing list"? i am grateful to be a member of a unique Parkinson's Disease support group on the Internet, and consider our e-mailing-list-cyber-family one of the un-sung miracles of our time. we use this on-line mailing list by sending e-mail messages into a central computer (located at the University of Toronto), which then instantly copies those messages to all 1600 members world-wide. if I were to send in an inquiry about medications, for instance, I might have several knowledgeable and helpful replies within hours or even minutes. PD is widely and incorrectly thought of as 'an old person's disease'. i first noticed symptoms in 1984 at age 37, and was diagnosed in 1988 at age 41. i believe that a case can be made for stating that fully half of all PD diagnoses apply to people under 47 years of age. the negative shock of this idea can be offset by new developments in pharmaceutical and surgical treatments for PD which are published with increasing frequency. a cure is no longer considered an impossibility. the following is from the pd list-owner Barb Patterson's web-site: http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/barbp/barbp.htm ---------- The Parkinsn Information Exchange Network (PIEN) was started on November 8, 1993 by Judy Norris, University of Toronto, and me (co-owners) in response to an "unmet need" for this service. There are now more than 1600 members from more than thirty- two countries. Fifty-two of the first one hundred members remain on the list. We are people who have been diagnosed with Parkinson's and who are also husbands, wives, parents, grandparents, lawyers, artists, writers, poets, musicians, teachers, professors, nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, neurologists, surgeons, engineers, laborers, secretaries and an ex-CIA agent. We are family caregivers/carers of people diagnosed with Parkinson's. We are professional caregivers including nursing home workers, physiotherapists, speech therapists, neuro-team members, doctors, nurses and researchers. We are educators, professors and students. We are political activists and pharmaceutical company representatives and media representatives. We are "list exploders" which relay PIEN messages to other groups. The University of Toronto is the host for PIEN, providing free of charge, the hardware and software to manage the membership list and distribute messages. Membership is open and free to all. The only cost involved is for whatever Internet service provider a member uses to read an average of twenty-five messages a day. Each message posted to the list by a member is automatically distributed to every member of the PIEN by the "Listserver" software. The position of "listowner" is an unpaid, volunteer one. Other volunteers regularly post instructions on how to interact with the Listserver and search the archives which contain every message ever posted to the PIEN including many scientific publications. The archives are a "unique resource" of information about living and working with Parkinson's. ---------- janet paterson - 51 now / 41 dx / 37 onset - almonte/ontario/canada http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/ [log in to unmask]