Adapting to life with Parkinson's

 

Well, it seems I didn’t do a post yesterday, I forgot about it. Anyway, here we are at Friday and that of course means a bit more about Parkinson’s Disease.

As the disease progresses those of us with it must learn how to adapt and adjust to the new challenges in our everyday life.

If one finds themselves shuffling and not lifting their feet when walking, they need to think about not having small rugs which could cause them to trip and fall. If you have bare floorboards and like to wear socks around the house without shoes you need to really be wearing grip socks, so you don’t slip over.

At some point one may find buttons hard to manage thus needing to change to something that doesn't involve buttons unless there is someone to help with the buttons. I do not wear anything that needs to be buttoned up.

Shoelaces can be a real challenge and one may find at some point they will need to change to either slip on shoes or ones with Velcro. The shoes I wear have Velcro.

Getting up from a low chair is next to impossible this I discovered after the tree came through the roof and I had to go to Jessica’s house, her lounge was too low, and I had a lot of trouble getting up from it, I solved the problem by using my wheelchair.

These are photos of my armchair including the remote and in a raised position.

My armchair is a lift chair although I don’t need the lift option at this stage I may do in the future, I find that not having to use my legs to lower the footrest and kick it into place better, the lift chair has a button that raises and lowers the footrest.

Yes these are photos of my bathroom, you will notice the towels over the handrails, these we need to mop up the floor as the drain is only so so. The pink towel is mine and it is over my shower chair which is a chair with handrails and a back. 

Another problem is many toilets are too low and both sitting on and getting up from it is a real struggle, this I had to deal with our first few days in emergency accommodation. The toilet we have here is a disabled toilet which means it is higher and I have handrails to hold onto when sitting and standing.

Many people have a problem getting out of bed or turning over in bed, thankfully I do not have this problem and I will worry about that when or if it happens. I have read that some think using slippery nylon sheets helps and maybe they do but at this stage such sheets would just annoy the hell out of me.

More about the daily struggles next week.