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Lanier wrote: >There was a story in the news a day or so ago, saying "one out of every = >five people have a mental illness! That can't be true can it? Any one = >see that story and care to comment on it. "Mental Illness" is a very fuzzy and imprecise term, isn't it. If you include clinical depression, and attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD), for example, one out of five may begin to sound like a conservative estimate. If one broadens the definition to include all brain disorders, then we could include PD, Huntington's Chorea, and other neurotransmitter disorders, couldn't we. Our family doctor, a Family Practice specialist with a large number of patients with movement disorders, startled me the other day. He stared at my husband who was writhing in his wheelchair with his left leg waving around up in the air at waist high level while he was leaning way over to the right in constant motion. He said Neal had passed Parkinson's and was exibiting symptoms of Huntingtons Disease! It brought home to me the reality that movement disorders are all interrelated in that they are a manifestation of the effect of an imbalance in the normal function of the neurotransmitters that govern normal muscle function. So, for example, PWPs that are overmedicated have too much dopamine to balance acetylcholine, and vice versa when undermedicated. The result is a lack of normal coordinated muscle control. All of the movement disorders share some aspects of imbalance of neurotransmitters. Its no wonder we have so much trouble with the drugs designed to help. Martha