Somethiing that I got to thinking about today and wondered if it fit others.

When I'm off and/or freezing, doing one thing is hard, doing two is impossible. Any form of multi-tasking is out.

That extends out to things like walking and looking around. Turning or changing stride length. Negotiating a crowded or cluttered room. Too much input.

Same thing when I first stand up. Takes a minute to recalibrate. Process all that input.

Now we all know the "tricks". Imagine a line and step over. Laser pointer on the floor. Holding a walking stick out ahead and following its tip.

These techniques have a common element of requiring that I focus on something - the laser dot for example. That in turn quietens the confusion in my head. Looking at my toes does a similar thing.

I imagine a chaotic state in my brainwaves. Focus quitens it. DBS does too. So does a metronome or music with a steady beat.

Anybody?

dear rev,
hijacking or just answering - my answer to your Q:
We are not getting the proper neurotransmissions -therefore
if you listen to music or a type of rythmn - the brainwaves will pick up the rythmn - copy it... soothing the overstimulation/

read about the heartbeat and breathing of a child it is copied from the mom
while the infant is being held and fed.

sound music - may ring true...
http://www.therelaxationcompany.com/soundmedicine.html

www.therelaxationcompany.com
theories proven by Dr. Jeffrey Thompson

The guy in the boat in the latest Dolce and Gabana commercial.He brings me out of a "frozen" state EVERY TIME !!!!!

Hah. Just kidding. I know what you mean Rick. On a good session I can multi task with ease.As of late, and I must add I am dealing with a 3 week long virus,pleurisy included, I am really struggling to maintain any quality sessions.I have more "offs" than ever before.I have to sit because my legs buckle and cannot support me at all during these periods. All I can do is,like you say,encourage a state of "calm" and the rest is down to the waiting game.It`s strange how you can feel all your energy drain away and then later,it begins to slowly creep back in.

I have not tried the music thing...but then again I am constantly playing music so maybe my brain has become too accustomed to this,for it to make any difference.
As for turning round.Thank God no-one sees me perform this "little ritual." It takes umpteen steps and looks like I am performing a rain dance !!! I am exhausted by the time I have managed to face the right direction.The trouble then is...if I don`t end up right...with my feet in such a position that they provide a sturdy enough support to balance, I keel over like a "felled" tree.

Steff

When there are no props available (i.e. pointers, lines, lasers, etc.) if you will take thought to move your left hand forward with your right foot (or visa versa), the response you are looking for, walking, should be there. Even if it is somewhat robotic, it beats shuffling.

As for music, I have found that for me a repetitive low D note or chord tends to calm my tremors. I discovered this before I began taking meds during an MRI session and again during a song service at church when the bass guitar was particularly strong on one song. Upon further study I decided that it was not the sound that relieved the tremor but the resonance (An excited state of a stable particle causing a sharp maximum in the probability of absorption of electromagnetic radiation...according to my dictionary). That is significant, because a resonance machine could be built without having the distubing factor of sound, and it could be worn outside the body...an external DBS if you will. I approached a sound engineer with the idea, and he thought it was feasible. I actually purchased a type of C.E.S. (cranial electro stimulator) and tried it. I achieved some success with it but not what I was hoping for. After using it four times daily for 15 minutes each session for four consecutive days, my tremor began to subside. After stopping treatment, the tremor did not increase until approximately 2 weeks had elapsed. A lack of knowledge of exactly what was actually happening in my brain to cause this is why I stopped the procedure. More controlled study should be considered in this area.

michael b.

One thing that goes awry is our internal timekeeping system based in a part of the brain abbreviated SCN but whose name I'm not going to look up until after coffee

This system is the ground that everything else is referenced to. It gets screwed up and so do we. Too much input.

Yes, Rick, it rings plenty true. Early on I forgot how to get out of a car and had to do it consciously. More recently I forgot how to put on pants, and now I struggle, although it gets better as I continue doing it independently and thus building alternate pathways in my brain (as I was told I had done when I was a subject in a brain imaging study involving hand movement in roughly 2000 or 2001).

It has been learned in the last few years that there is frontal lobe involvement in PD. I believe you guys are talking about the function of the anterior cingulate cortex (among other things). You (meaning anyone reading) can google on "cognitive neuroscience" to open up this wonderful field of brain research. Executive function is only part of it. I think the Society for Neuroscience does a particularly good job of explaining the science without dumbing it down in their "Brain Briefings" series. Example (from http://www.sfn.org/skins/main/pdf/Br..._Nov2002.pdf):
GO HARD SCIENCE

Jaye
"If you want to keep moving, keep moving." - Bob C.

Jaye - you forgot how to put on your pants?

You better check yourself before walking out the door. Otherwise, you'll be out somewhere, look down and say, "Damn, I knew I forgot something!"

I'm exactly the same as you, Rick.

For me, it does not feel like my brain is chaotic. It instead seems as if certain connections are missing, and I need to supply new ones.

Last night I was 'walking' in my living room with just a night light on and I could barely walk at all, even though I certainly know that turf well. I must have the visual cues I get from looking at the floor. Without it I walked in a typical PD way as if I were in a much later stage. Very slow short steps and my arms held in that weird PD way. Very unstable, balance poor.

But, turn the light on and I'm much better instantly.

Oh, I missed my 300th post. I hope is was a good one.

~Zucchini

For me, a dark room, even tho familiar, is much worse than a lighted one too but I wonder if we are mistaking visual cues which presumably help in some mysterious way as being a stimulus when actually it is just the opposite. For example, imagining a line in front of us and stepping over it. Is it that the line stimulates us enough to break the blockade? Or is it that focusing our minds on the image brings order where there was none?

Another one- remember the banding experiments? Could it have been that the pressure of a band around a limb gave a point of focus to our otherwise poorly coordinated minds?

It is the reward, the goal, the destination, the positive and the negative, the yin-yang, the imbalance seeking balance and it's the cyclic nature of things that keeps life going. Turning the light on brings into focus an out of focus array of possible matches for the response that we are desiring. Too much input, on the other hand, makes demands on our executive decision making center that has to prioritize stimulus - response activity into a correct sequence necessary for coordinated movement.

michael b.