Interesting to read this, and the thread too. Paula, agree with you on that statement!

So we have levodopa now, and things that mimic it, and they give us more mobility. So is it the drugs that give us extra years, or that we move more? And delaying medication, and exercising more, and using alternative ways of living with PD, where to they fit in?

I was going to say that we have better quality of life, and to some degree that is true, but our meds come with high price tags - who has not experienced the fogginess of being medicated and longed to feel the clarity of the person they are under the medication. Or wearing off/wearing on, and the time that goes on that. Dyskinesias, managing different combinations. The whole complicated nature of dealing with it. So instead of a long slow slide into immobility and lack of communication we have something different to deal with. We are certainly more mobile, and for longer, but less afflicted?

Together with Laura's post today on tiny damage to brain tissue, I guess there are still as many questions 50 years on, and it seems less likely than ever that there will be a single cure, though with the increasing cases of ever younger people it will be just as important to find preventatives.