I have got another informal poll for you all. There is a lot of focus on what are called non-motor symptoms of PD at the moment – they can included insomnia, constipation, sexual dysfunction, anxiety, pain, etc.

My question is, if you could ONLY have EITHER your motor symptoms cured, OR your non-motor symptoms cured, which would you choose?

This is a strictly either/or question – pretend you are taking one of those tests where you choose the answer by filling in the circle with your #2 pencil, and there are only two circles to choose from. If you are somewhere in the middle, please pick the answer to which you are closest.

Thanks!

addendum: and if you are willing, would you state the single symptom you would most like to be rid of? mine is bradykinesia.

my vote is for non-motor - specifically depression

me, too!

Definitely would be rid of the motor symptoms first!!

Seems like I am always opposite the majority.

,,,ken

i don't know if the pollster is supposed to vote but i would get rid of motor, absolutely. not sure i have any non-motor symptoms.

Non-motor for me

motor - my non-motor symptoms do not stand alone as as devastating to my quality of life as the motor symptoms. But depression isn't a major factor for me so far - if it was, I don't know which I would pick. Without motivation to keep going the harder it gets, due to depression, it might be a more difficult decision.

paula

thank you paula - and (i am about to get a little agitated and want you to know it is not directed at you or anyone w/pd but rather at the research community which has - yet again - bought in wholesale to a theory for which no one can provide supporting evidence0)

i know that depression as a symptom has become conventional wisdom at this point but here i go again, bucking the tide - i have been looking high and low for any evidence that this is the case - a study that compared incidence of depression in PWP to that in people with cystic fibrosis, rheumatoid arthritis, any degenerative disease that doesn't involve the brain, but there are none.

i have asked at least four researchers, two of whom are considered to be experts in the field and one who is starting out in the field and another whose specialty within neuroscience i don't know; the last person i mentioned had pretty much just taken others' word for it; the third person i mentioned said hey, you're right, i haven't found anything either; one expert told me essentially there was no hard evidence, and the second expert never responded to my email - and i have read all of her papers on pd and depression and not one of them addresses the question of whether it is a symptom or not.

so far the *only* "evidence" that i have seen is 1) that depression rates are higher among pwp than they are among the general population, and 2) that pwp are more likely to have been depressed before either onset or diagnosis (not sure which) than pwop (people without parkinson's).

depression rates being higher among pwp proves nothing - pd sucks - it is no wonder 50% of us are depressed - who wouldn't be? and you know what? the depression rate among people with asthma is 50% too, so there you go.

and as far is it pre-dating the disease itself being proof it is a symptom, consider the fact that depressed people are far more likely, i.e., 1.6 times more likely (that's HUGE) to develop coronary artery disease - but ain't no one calling depression a symptom of coronary artery disease, are they? no, they are not.

the stats re asthma and coronary artery disease came from a 2005 paper you can read for free here:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...medid=15670467

yet again, the research world boggles me.

Just realized i sent mixed messages by including depression in the list of non motor symptoms - wasn't sure how to handle that and then forgot i had included it. am going to take it out now. apologies again.

Interesting boann. I remember the first time I heard this new "definition" of PD was 2 years ago. While I'm glad they are discovering new things about the illness, if it delays a treatment or leads researchers astray - well I think I'll lose faith in man. Dare I say, what little faith I have? What good is it to correct my depression if I can't move? Interesting thoughts. That's why I like to hang around places....so they can look at a real clump of dopamine deficient cells...lol

paula