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Do you have the Wobblies? Stooped back, shaky hands, stiff muscles and legs that don't obey your brain? Parkinson's patients often struggle to walk in tiny steps -- sometimes overbalancing and falling. During the trip to the emergency room to have your forehead laceration repaired, you might hear a few jokes about your expressionless "mask-like" face -- a manifestation of your muscle rigidity. You can control simple tasks, but the Wobblies return whenever your attention shifts -- fingers twitching with a "pill-rolling" tremor, as though you're rubbing a pencil between your thumb and forefinger. A knife and fork have turned into deadly weapons. Eventually any voluntary movement is almost impossible, resulting in bedsores from lying too long in a single position. Parkinsonian patients with advanced cases are often demented, but who's to say -- was it a side effect of the disease, or just the torture of being imprisoned in a body that has stiffened into cement-like immobility?
Parkinson's Disease occurs when a tiny chevron of brain cells call the Substancia Nigra die off in your diencephalon, eliminating dopinminergic input to motion-coordinating areas of your brain. The cause is a mystery, although it could be the grim price you pay for years of snorting bathtub crystal meth. Medications such as Sinemet ease the "shaking palsy" by boosting the dopaminergic activity, but the disease is often progressive -- prompting some individuals to desperate measures such as brain implants with electrical nerve stimulators.
About 1% of 60-year olds have Parkinson's Disease, making it the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. The Wobblies generally progress slowly over a decade, giving you plenty of time to write your congressman about changing restrictions on stem-cell research, since many specialists -- including Parkinson's sufferer and famous actor Michael J Fox -- believe stem cell implants offer the best chance of permanently reversing the disease. Unfortunately, any stem cell treatment you see advertised on this page is likely to remain a scam for many years into the future.
Until then, you will have to learn to live with the Wobblies. But at least Parkinson's Disease won't hinder you from participating in what is already America's favorite pastime -- sloth-like inactivity in front of your computer or television screen.
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