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RE; laser pointers Several years ago the lab with which I'm affiliated and I studied laser pointers in the course of our investigating various technologies for overcoming PD gait problems. Initial results seemed encouraging but the laser would not prevent freezes from occurring. So one might use the laser light to overcome the freeze and then two steps later the subject would again become frozen. Equally effective (with the same drawback) is closing one's eyes for a step or two. Gait can sometimes be sustained by focusing on a laser lamp projected onto the floor as one walks - a maneuver which most of us would find socially unacceptable. By focusing on the light spot as opposed to the floor itself one "sees" the optical flow (apparent motion) of the floor rather than the floor itself. The key to overcoming freezing is augmenting the visibility of optical flow or accelerating the velocity of optical flow (no one freezes while running). There are in fact better technologies to accomplish this...in fact if our NIH grant is approved we plan to build and test these technologies later this year. regards, Tom