Living with Parkinson's

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

BBC newsreader Jane Hill knows all about Parkinson’s. Her father was diagnosed in t1980s and lived with the condition for ten years — her uncle had it, too. She’s spoken about the dreadful experience of watching helplessly as the two men were engulfed by the degenerative disease, losing their independence and the ability to do the things that they once enjoyed. “I remember feeling how cruel Parkinson’s is. The number of people living with Parkinson’s disease is set to double over the next few decades as we all live longer; it is the only long-term neurological condition that is increasing globally. In this series Jane Hill looks at what it means to be given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s and the reality of living with the condition. She and her cousin Steve remember how their fathers adopted a British stiff upper lip at a time when there was little awareness. In contrast she meets highly successful comedy writer Paul Mayhew Archer, whose reaction to his diagnosis was to create a one-man show exploring the lighter side of living with Parkinson’s. Actors Michael J Fox and Alan Alda both discuss the early symptoms of the disease and their diagnosis. Most people are diagnosed in their sixties but Dutch blogger Mariette Robijn talks about accepting a life changing diagnosis in her forties. Picture: Dopaminergic neuron, 3D illustration. Degeneration of this brain cells is responsible for development of Parkinson's disease, Credit: Dr Microbe Presenter: Jane Hill Producer: Geraldine Fitzgerald

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.0	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.0	Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Paul Mayhew Archer and I have an incurable
0:48.6	illness but instead of sitting at home feeling miserable, I've decided to come to the Rondo Theater in Bath
0:56.8	and make you all feel miserable as well.
1:00.3	So please welcome me to me to say.
1:01.5	The incurable disease Paul is talking about is Parkinson's and it's on the rise around the world.
1:08.0	You might think of it as the condition that makes people shake, but not everyone with Parkinson's does. There are numerous symptoms and they're wide-ranging as we'll hear.
1:17.0	I'm Jane Hill and I've experienced this first hand.
1:20.0	My dad lived with Parkinson's for more than 10 years and his brother had it too.
1:26.0	They were diagnosed 15 years apart and our family did see some improvements in treatment over that time. But there's still no cure and scientists
1:36.1	still aren't sure what causes it. 200 years after an East London doctor, James Parkinson,
1:42.4	identified what he termed the shaking palsy.
1:45.0	Over the next three episodes of The Truth About Parkinson's, here on the BBC World Service, I'll be looking at what it means to be
1:55.0	given a diagnosis, whether exercise is among the best medicine, and hearing about the latest
	...

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