Now you can be the first to get Dr. Sutherland and Teepa Snow's video, Practical Tips for Better Living with Parkinson's Disease delivered to your home anywhere in the world. Click here to order: https://www.pineseducation.org/product/practical-tips-for-better-living-with-parkinsons-disease/
Did you know that you can actively impact the course of Parkinson’s disease (PD)? What you do and what you know can positively affect the quality of life for you and the person living with PD.

Join neurologist Dean Sutherland, MD, Ph.D., and occupational therapist Teepa Snow, MS, OTR/L, FAOTA, for two engaging and information-packed workshops. This comprehensive Parkinson’s disease “toolkit” will leave you informed, inspired, and ready to practice your new skills for a better life with PD. 

Workshop #1 with Dr. Dean Sutherland 

Who gets Parkinson’s disease, and how is it diagnosed?

What are the signs and symptoms?

Medications and treatments that can offer relief

How exercise and support groups can help


Workshop #2 with Teepa Snow

After the diagnosis: What you choose to do matters!

What helps, what hurts and what gets in the way?

Using rhythm and movement to overcome freezing and rigidity

Using visual and physical cues to guide and model care routines

Here's a link to a sample video from the package that you'll get:

https://www.pineseducation.org/product/practical-tips-for-better-living-with-parkinsons-disease-online-video/


Don't wait! This is a great learning tool for caregivers, patients and medical professionals. If you have someone living with Parkinson's in your life, this is the video for you. Click here for more information: 

https://www.pineseducation.org/product/practical-tips-for-better-living-with-parkinsons-disease/

Saying what we mean is so much better than putting shame into what we are saying.

By Doreen T. Sutherland, MBA

What we say is a literal shame.  We use shaming, blaming words and we don’t even know it. I do it. You do it. We all do it. We must stop. Here are some words to think about.

Don’t say COMMITTED suicide. It sounds like you’re saying the person committed a crime like stealing, attacking someone or murder. Suicide is not a crime; it’s the product of a medical illness. Let’s be part of the modern era and stop hiding behind our mothers’ aprons. It’s died OF pnemonia, heart attack, stroke, cancer, suicide. 

Don’t say she IS bipolar or she IS schizophenic. People are actually people first and foremost. SOME people get diseases and chronic physical or mental health conditions. The disease is not their identity and it does not define their character or who they are. She is not pneumonia or cancer. She HAS bipolar disorder or she has OCD or she is a person WITH bipolar disorder. That simple change makes “bipolar” the noun it should be and absolves it of the ugly responsibility of being a reluctant adjective or adverb.

Don’t say he IS an addict. Again, people are people, not a disease and this blames him for being part of a group harboring a disease in the same way that we once labeled lepers. He is a person who may have an addiction or a substance abuse disorder. Say he HAS an addiction.

For medical professionals: Don’t say the patient IS NON-COMPLIANT. This is a tough one because it’s so convenient as short hand. What’s really happening is that we are blaming a patient for not following a plan that they may not have understood or have agreed to follow. They may not have had the money to buy the medication, had transportation to get to the referral or had a lack of education that is preventing them from following the plan. Rather than placing “non-compliant” in the permanent record it might be useful to ask, “ WHY ISN”T THE TREATMENT WORKING?”

PROVIDER is an awful word. (And I am guilty of using it. You can probably find it in this blog somewhere.) Providers provide something. Anything. In medicine, a provider is an economic term that places all revenue generators together. It’s offensive to those who have spent dozens of years to master their profession. Say PHYSICIAN, SURGEON, HEALTH PROFESSIONAL.

MIDLEVEL is also a rotten word. Midlevel provider (two lousy words) is a word designed by MBAs to describe the revenue generators in medicine that are somewhere between the doctors and the nurses. I am wondering why the MBAs (like myself) don’t prefer to be called MIDLEVEL ACADEMICS since we are somewhere between those with bachelors degrees and PhDs when it comes to knowledge about these things. It’s better to say PHYSICIAN ASSISTANT.

Saying what we mean is so much better than putting shame into what we are saying.


Inspired by Pamela Wible, MD

SCIENTISTS believe they have identified the cause of devastating neurological conditions - such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

By OLIVIA LERCHE

PUBLISHED: 09:30, Fri, May 13, 2016 | UPDATED: 09:35, Fri, May 13, 2016 in the UK EXPRESS

A study has revealed an ‘out-of-control immune system’ could be to blame for the neurological conditions, finding mental decline common to both of the diseases is caused by a process called ‘auto inflation’.

This is where the immune system is develops a constant ‘persistent’ inflammatory response. But over time, this inflammation causes some brain cells to die.

Professsor Robert Richards, said: “Dementia, including the most common form Alzheimer’s Disease, and related neurodegenerative conditions are dramatically rising in frequency as people live longer and our population ages.

“Australia is predicting that by 2050 there will be almost double the number of people with dementia, and the United States similarly says there will be twice as many. “Currently we have no effective treatments to assist the millions of affected people, and these diseases are an enormous burden on families and the public health care system.”

The Alzheimer's Society said there will be 1 million people with dementia in the UK by 2025.

Previously, researchers have focused on the role of protein deposits called amyloid plaques that lodge in the brain of Alzheimer’s affected people.

But it is now clear that this is an inadequate explanation for Alzheimer’s Disease, according to researchers.

There are many distinct forms of neurodegeneration including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s Diseases.

These conditions are distinguished by the different types of brain nerve cells that are first affected and by the symptoms that first appear. However, as all of these diseases progress, they become more similar.

Professor Richards said he believes that instead of many different mechanisms, each disease has the same underlying mechanism, and common pathway of nerve cell loss.

“Our interest in the body’s own (innate) immune system as the culprit began when we discovered that immune system agents become activated in a laboratory model of Huntington’s Disease,” he said.

“Remarkably, researchers from other laboratories were at the same time reporting similar features in other neurodegenerative diseases.

“When we pulled the evidence together, it made a very strong case that uncontrolled innate immunity is indeed the common cause.”

The innate immune system is the first line of defence in cells, and normally distinguishes molecules that belong to the body from foreign, disease-causing, molecules.

It is an alarm and response system with a self-destruct mechanism to contain and eliminate invaders or abnormal cells, like cancer.

Malfunctions can occur because of various triggers including genetic mutations, infection, toxins or physical injury, all of which have been linked with different forms of neurodegeneration.

Initially the innate immune system protects the tissue against these triggers, but prolonged activation becomes self-perpetuating, causing brain cell death to occur.

“We hope this new way of understanding neurodegeneration will lead to new treatments,” said Professor Richards.

“We now need to further investigate the immune signalling molecules, to identify new drug targets that will delay the onset and/or halt the progression of these devastating diseases.”

Dr. Dean Sutherland has been again named a Top Doc, an annual listing of the region’s most outstanding physicians, as nominated by their peers and compiled, vetted and verified by Castle Connolly Medical. The research firm’s extensive process starts with online nominations open to all physicians and includes screening of each doctor’s professional credentials and record.

Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. is a healthcare research and information company founded in 1991 by a former medical college board chairman and president to help guide consumers to America’s top doctors and top hospitals. Castle Connolly’s established nomination survey, research, screening and selection process, under the direction of an M.D., involves many hundreds of thousands of physicians as well as academic medical centers, specialty hospitals and regional and community hospitals all across the nation. Castle Connolly’s physician-led team of researchers follows a rigorous screening process to select top doctors on both the national and regional levels. Its online nominations process—located at www.castleconnolly.com/nominations—is open to all licensed physicians in America, who are able to nominate physicians in any medical specialty and in any part of the country, as well as indicate whether the nominated physician is, in their opinion, among the best in their region in their medical specialty or among the best in the nation in their medical specialty. Careful screening of doctors’ educational and professional experience is essential before final selection is made among those physicians most highly regarded by their peers.