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Hello all, I have been reading your messages for the past couple of weeks. I can't tell you how impressed and inspired I am by all that you have to offer. My prayers are with all of you who suffer with PD and I do hope you will be able to cope. My mother has PD and has had it now for almost 25 years. She is 79 and is confined to a wheelchair. We have a darling lady from Mexico that has been living with her and taking care of her for the past 5 1/2 years. She came on board a year before my father died and has been an angel. But mother seems to be worse just in the last couple of months and her caregiver can't take it much longer. We are currently looking for someone to come in on the weekends to give her a break. We are hoping that this caregiver will then decide to stay with mother indefinately (as she promised mother she would do). I am concerned lately because mother seems to have periods where she will become very, very hot and start to feel panicky. Of course, her shaking becomes uncontrollable at this point. This will happen at least twice during the night and at least that many times during the day. Her skin is so hot to the touch. I will sit with her and just talk and try and make her laugh. She loves being read to and I will do that as well. We will increase her Sinemet and she will eventually cool off and stop the uncontrollable shaking (and I'm not convinced that the Sinemet is what helps her to calm down--there is no clear pattern here). However, that can take from anywhere from a half an hour or two hours. Has anyone seen this happen before? Of course, mom always has periods of shaking but never with this heat business. She wants to die at times like these, and I don't blame her. She keeps saying that she won't live for very much longer (and I must say that I would love to see her released from her years of suffering). But on the other hand, she still has such a wonderful sense of humor and looks so beautiful and we still have some great times together just talking about current events and family matters. One of the hardest things we must deal with is knowing when she tells us something, if it is her confusion or if she really knows what she is talking about. So often I am amazed to find that what I thought she was telling me was such a far out story only to find that it was the truth. But she is definately confused at least half the time and it's hard to know which time is which. Any suggestions from any of you would be appreciated. Also, we are located in Salt Lake City if anyone out there has access to a source of caregivers. Thank you, Laurie Cook