Tea Partiers Mock And Scorn Apparent Parkinson’s Victim

31.07.10 / parkinsons disease / Author: Alex
Tags: Apparent, Mock, parkinsons, Partiers, Scorn, Victim

Columbus Dispatch Outs “The Terrible Teabagger”: bit.ly COLUMBUS – In a scene reminiscent of non-violent civil rights confrontations from the 1960s, Ohio Tea Partiers quickly turned ugly when facing off with health care advocates in front of Ohio Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s office Tuesday. In shocking video taken by a Columbus Dispatch reporter Doral Chenowith yesterday, Tea Party protestors mock a seated counter-protestor with a sign indicating he has Parkinson’s disease. They then proceed to hurl wadded up bills at him shouting, “I’ll decide when to give you money!” On March 17th outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s (D-OH15) district office teabaggers mocked and scorned a man who had a sign stating that he had Parkinson’s. They told him “he’s in the wrong end of town to ask for handouts”, called him a communist and threw dollar bills at him to “pay for his health care”.

Parkinson’s Disease — Prevention & Alleviating the Symptoms

The compound below is showing great promise not only for the prevention of Parkinson’s disease, but also alleviating of the symptoms.

It’s cheap, naturally part of the food chain, and showing great promise with the treatment of a number of conditions in addition to Parkinson’s disease, from Depression to Alzheimer’s, as well as many others.

The compound is familiar to everyone and is:

Nicotine

Parkinson’s disease belongs to a group of conditions that occur less among cigarette smokers than in non-smokers.

Smoking is of course harmful, no one should take it up to prevent or alleviate the disease; however the specific compound in cigarette smoking that is believed to prevent and also provide relief for suffers is – Nicotine.

Nicotine in Pure Form is safe & non toxic

Nicotine removed from cigarettes in its natural state is a safe, non toxic and is found in many common foods and vegetables.

Nicotine is now showing great promise in medical research in terms of both prevention of Parkinson’s disease, and also for the alleviation of the symptoms.

Nicotine & Parkinson’s Disease Research

Research has suggested that some of the movement difficulties experienced by Parkinson suffers are less severe after smoking cigarettes, taking nicotine gum or using nicotine patches.

Researchers have been aware for over 30 years that fewer smokers get Parkinson’s diseases than non-smokers.

The observation was first made in the 1970′s and similar results have been shown in all subsequent tests.

The protective effect is large, active smokers have a 60% reduction in risk compared with those who have never been smokers.

Nicotine is not only showing great promise in its preventive affect but also in alleviating the symptoms of suffers who have the disease already.

How Nicotine can help

Prevention

Researchers believe that the main reason underlying the protective action of nicotine maybe its ability to increase the expression of neurotrophic factors that are known to help the survival of dopaminergic neurons, as nicotine increases the number of “nicotinic” receptors in the brain.

These receptors influence the production and release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Parkinson’s disease occurs when brain cells that produce dopamine, an important chemical messenger die. People don’t get Parkinson’s disease until approximatley 80% to 90% of the dopamine-producing cells are dead.

Nicotine is believed to protect these cells against damage and as a consequence prevent the disease. Alleviating the symptoms

Nicotine may help to lessen memory difficulties which occur in some people with Parkinson’s disease.

The number of nicotinic receptors are decreased in the brains of people who have Parkinson’s disease.

The nicotine in cigarette smoke, in the nicotine patch or in gum may lead to an extra stimulation of these remaining nicotinic receptors and thus alleviate the symptoms.

Products

Nicotine is available in patches and gum and several companies have looked at nicotine water as a safe delivery method for organic nicotine with no added chemicals.

Nicotine water is already being marketed and further products are being researched, all with the aim of delivering pure organic nicotine without harmful chemicals.

Nicotine natures wonder drug?

While nicotine has had an image problem due to its association with smoking.

There is however a lot of excitement about its potential to prevent and help with a number of medical conditions that include not only Parkinson’s disease, but also:

Alzheimer’s disease, Schizophrenia, obesity, depression and even some cancers.

Research is at an early stage with many conditions, but Nicotine could just be about to get public recognition for its significant health benefits.

Envoy To Seek New Parkinson’s Disease Therapy With Scripps
Envoy Therapeutics Inc., a recently formed drug discovery company, announced that it has begun a research collaboration with The Scripps Research Institute to identify new drugs for Parkinson’s disease (PD) that have greater efficacy and safety compared to current therapies. Using funding provided by Envoy, scientists at the two organizations will apply Scripps – Florida’s high-throughput …
Read more on Medical News Today

Question by Crafty Fashionista: Does Parkinson’s Disease cause a person to have frequent uncontrollable mood swings?
Are uncontrollable mood swings or irritable behavior a part of the disease’ symptoms or do mood swings play a part because of the other uncontrollable symptoms such as not being able to do things you used to do?
I know someone with Parkinson’s Disease who is usually a pretty nice person but sometimes will have this nasty irriatable attitude twards people for no reason, and was wondering if its part of the disease. I havent found much info online about this and I dont dare ask them!

Best answer:

Answer by Mags
First of all, thank you for asking this question because it is a very important one in regards to PD.

There are a few reasons for the mood swings in Parkinson’s disease patients. And this can be very disconcerting to friends and families who are often the victims of some rather nasty outbursts.

One thing to remember about depression is that it is often the outgrowth of fear; fear turned inward. But as the person with the depression, that is difficult to address. Sometimes it is easier just to lash out, to try to displace that fear by projecting the anger behind it onto someone else.

Sometimes the side effects of medications can be mood swings. This would depend upon the medication and/or interactions with other meds.

Depression is a very common symptom of PD in at least 50-60% of the patients. It is part of the disease. This depression often needs to be treated differently, some people can be helped by SAD lights, exercise which raises endorphin levels, therapy, certain anti-depressants, nutritional supplements. Still it is surprising how few suicides there are among PD patients

Depression can fluctuate depending upon the little successes or failures of daily activities. Today is a bad day in this house because of concerns about a family gathering tonight. And while I was trying to type this answer I became the focus of this PD anger.

From the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation: “researchers have found that people with Parkinson’s who were depressed had more trouble with daily activities, and were more likely to begin medication for motor symptoms sooner than those without depressive symptoms. Depression decreased their quality of life and made their motor symptoms worse—but treating the depression, rather than the motor symptoms, improved both quality of life and movement”

“Parkinson’s affects many parts of the brain that are important in controlling mood. One of these is the area that produces serotonin, a brain chemical implicated in depression. Another part of the brain important in regulating mood—the frontal lobe—is known to be under-active in Parkinson’s. Commonly prescribed antidepressants can help. In addition to medications, cognitive-behavioral therapy has also been shown to help some people with Parkinson’s.”

http://www.pdf.org/en/depression_pd

From the NeuroPsychiatry Review:
“Mood disturbances are a common problem in PD; depression or dysthymia may affect as many as half of patients. Often, however, these disorders are less disconcerting to patients than the mood swings that, in extreme cases, may shift from feelings of euphoria to suicidal urges within the same day. “For some people, it’s their predominant complaint, more so than the motor fluctuations,” said study author Irene Hegeman Richard, MD, an assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center. “When their emotions are literally out of control, it’s very disturbing to them.” Approximately two thirds of patients with advanced PD and motor fluctuations also experience mood fluctuations.”

The above is from a very informative article: Parkinson’s Disease – Do Mood and Motor Fluctuations Match?

http://www.neuropsychiatryreviews.com/apr00/npr_apr00_pd.html

Not only can depression by a by-product symptom of PD, it is often a precursor symptom of the brain loss of homeostasis long before the appearance of the obvious symptoms which send a person for diagnosis.

The problem is getting it treated, treated for what it is – which is not mainstream depression. The discussion probably needs to begin with the neurologist. But how to get the patient to see the need to discuss it…..

I’m sorry that you have to endure this. It takes a huge reserve of patience to be on the receiving end when the abuse is coming from a disease and not an essentially nasty person. That is why there are support groups for caregivers.

I can be reached through Yahoo Answers and through Contact Us at the site below.

What do you think? Answer below!

Getting ready for the Parkinson’s 5K Walk & Fun Run 2008


Image by gebl
(C)Gebl 2008