If you ever want to learn something new about Parkinson's try the Annual Symposium held in Portland, Oregon every Fall. I think I have attended 15 or 16 of the 18 meetings and have never gone away disappointed. My husband and I arrived at the Double Tree Hotel the night before and enjoyed their beautiful room overlooking the Columbia River and the interstate bridge that was drawn up for the "Sternwheeler" sightseeing ship to pass under. The room was exceptionally inexpensive when booked with Priceline. We spent most of the next morning at my favorite meal, Brunch, before attending the meeting in the same hotel. Seems like I am always eating.

   

What wonderful speakers were chosen to speak to the 450 people in attendance. First speaker was Dr. Ronald Pfeiffer, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. He spoke about the lesser known symptoms of PD, the impaired sense of smell, visual dysfunction, the Parkinson personality, behavioral dysfunction, depression, the most common psychiatric problem in PD, dementia, anxiety, sleep disturbances, restless legs, different kinds of pain, hypotension, and several more. It was nice to not feel so alone with so many of my symptoms. He was not only full of knowlege about the little known symptoms, he had an entertaining presentation that not even my Mirapex could dampen.

  

Barry Morse, "The Fugitive"

Ronald Pfeiffer, MD

  

A hard act to follow but living up to the challenge was Melanie Fried-Oken, Director, Augmentative Communication Clinic, Speech-Language Pathologist at Oregon Health Science University.  She spoke of encouraging methods to regain lost speech. She showed how pacing boards and finger tapping can help a patient concentrate on each word. When speech is completely gone there are alphabet boards, topic boards, talking typewriters. This lovely young lady was so full of optimism I honestly forgot how devastating it would be to not be able to speak; especially for me. I spoke privately to her about a friend of mine who has grave difficulty speaking and Melanie had several suggestions.

     

Time for a break and an abundance of cold cuts and yummy cookies.  After break the rest of the time was used by two very inspirational speakers, the first was Reverend Dr. Marilyn Sewell, from The First Unitarian Church, she touched many hearts with her message that It is all right to have hopes and dreams. Next, the audience is invited to ask questions in written form to the panel of speakers and hosts. This turns out to be the most educational part of the program every year.

   

One more speaker, Barry Morse, the actor who starred in the "Fugitive"? gave such an endearing tribute to his love, Sidney. She had suffered for years with Parkinson's and is now at peace. What a touching way to end a perfect day.

I hope these symposiums start to become a gathering place for PLWP. They are so inspirational.

jjjane

 

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