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Hello, Did anyone read the article on PD in the March-April 1999 issue of Modern Maturity? The author, D. Keith Mano, is a writer who is also a PWP. It's good to be getting still more attention, but I'm not quite sure what to make of this particular piece. Mano calls his PD "Parkinson's condition". He personifies it, describing it as an "oafish" cousin who visits, doesn't leave, and then becomes a big problem. Mano refuses to get angry; instead he decides to give "him" a name -- "Bert", and develops a "reluctant fondness" for "him". Believing that Sinemet has a "honeymoon period" of only 3 to 5 years, Mano delayed taking it for about 5 years. During that period he developed considerable stiffness and bradykinesia. His attitude toward these changes was to initially regard them as a challenge and a curiousity. He only became spooked later when he started getting emotional (he found this emergence of the "feminine" to be "disconcerting") and after a great deal of stiffness had set in, resulting in loss of the use of the fingers of his right hand and other "very, very bad" symptoms. Sinemet, of course, worked its wonders, nearly eliminating his symptoms. But, he writes, "perversely enough, something in me still needs the challenge of my condition..." I'm not sure whether this article does us a service or not. I find the phrase "Parkinson's condition" to be inappropriate. It's not just that everyone in the field of medicine calls it by its proper name, "Parkinson's disease". To me "Parkinson's condition" tends to minimize the illness. Beyond all the considerable discomfort and disability we endure, we are 3 to 4 times more likely to die of pneumonia* and 6 to 7 times more likely to become demented** compared to the general population. Mano's way of personifying his disease strikes me as like an attempt to regard a grizzly bear as a Teddy bear. Perhaps Mano is still struggling with denial. Phil Tompkins Hoboken NJ age 61/dx 1990 * Gorell JM, Johnson CC, Rybicki. "Parkinson's disease and its comorbid disorders: an analysis of Michigan mortality data, 1970 to 1990." Neurology, 1994,Oct;44(10):1865-8. ** Lang AE, Lozano AM. "Parkinson's disease." NEJM, 1998,Oct;339(15):1044-53.