I think that I was not saying that... I was simply challenging, intellectually only of course, , the notion of aging and illness being the same thing. Which is what you also are saying Ron!

Once alzheimers was seen as being part of aging, and rheumatism, which is of course no longer called that by any other than lay people, because it is a generic term for many conditions. When you take all of these so-called signs of old age away, because they are actually signs of disease, what you are left with is some mainly quite healthy people who are pretty old. And a lot of them are mentally and physically intact, and quite spry. My lady at the bus stop was one of those people. She had a little shake in her hand, but in conversation was pretty clear that she did not have PD, and in fact I could see that she did not.

In some parts of the world many who get to old age are like this, life has weeded out a lot of people on the way. Through infectious disease, and diseases of affluence. The medical model of old age is not the only one.

There are a lot of older people out there right now who are not doing things because their expectations of themselves are that old age is only about certain decline. On the other hand there are a lot of people who are very active, who are in all sorts of things, including taking one major roles in the bringing up of their grandchildren, becoming secondary parents almost, and parenting of any kind, substitute or not is hard work.

If we were to accept that PD and Alzheimers were a natural part of aging, then what explains the sisters who lead near identical lives, live in the same place, so similar physically, one gets a degenerative disorder and the other doesn't. One is healthy and has an energy that young people would envy, the other has a degenerative condition and is clearly ill. And yes, she looks considerably older than her healthy sister. She also looks as though she is very unwell.

Does the aging come first heralding the illness?
Or the other way round, the illness causes the 'premature' aging?

Premature aging is not how I would describe PD, surely it is premature degeneration through disease. What PD takes away is much more than aging..... Even very old people can still smile, communicate, move...

It's not that I don't accept the idea that we are prematurely agin, I do not believe that is what PD is......

Lindy