It’s raining, it’s pouring, there are ducks on the front lawn?!! I’m so glad I took a photo of this feathery fellow who was catching up to his mates this morning or I would have thought I was seeing things. We’ve lived here for 13 years and this is the first duck I’ve ever seen on our lot. I think they were headed for The Swamp – also known as our backyard.

Cafe Fairfax 
We had a very informative discussion with Dr. John Dresely, O.D. FCOVD when he visited us on Wednesday to talk about Parkinson’s Disease: Effect on Vision. We learned that people with Parkinson’s can experience dry eyes, blephartitis (a low-grade infection of the eyelid), decreased color vision (usually with blues and yellows), visual hallucinations, spasm or weakness of the eyelids and about 14% can experience double vision. When we look at something we’re using 80% of the brain because it’s not just for what we see, but the language we use to describe what we’re seeing, and how the brain interprets other things like color. Dr. Dresely brought along some of his “toys”, such as glasses to demonstrate how vision can affect your balance, and cards that show how difficult it is to read and remember when the eyes aren’t working together well. There were lots of questions and we appreciated his easy to understand answers.

Caregiver Class at Insight Memory Care Center
Along with a couple of other ladies who attended Cafe Fairfax, I stayed on to hear Colleen Walker talk about Activities of Daily Living Success! It was great to see how the participants helped each other. For instance, women in the group suggested products for a husband to help his wife remove her makeup, while a couple of gentlemen explained the shaving process to the wives so they could make it a less stressful experience for their husbands. Lindsey, Director of Education and Outreach at Insight, did a marvelous job of finding many of the products we discussed, displaying them on the monitor so we could all see. We learned that you can find almost anything on Amazon, and that Home Depot has a Health & Wellness section on its website to help people age in place. For adaptive clothing Buck and Buck (We make dressing easier) was suggested.

There’s a new PD Support Group in Alexandria at Paul Spring
Tuesday May 22 at 1:00 pm
Where: Paul Spring Independent & Assisted Living Community
7116 Fort Hunt Rd, Alexandria, VA 22307
Contact: Alexandra Woodman Johnson
Ajohnson@olddominionhomecare.com or (703) 772-0887
Alexandra was asked by residents at Paul Spring to start a support group there, but they want you to know that anyone touched by Parkinson’s is welcome.

Cafes next week
You have your choice of joining us at two cafes next week! We’ll be in Alexandria on Monday and Ashburn on Wednesday. I’m looking forward to introducing you to Susan Dietrich from APDA who is visiting Cafe Alexandria, and Margie Comerford, SLP, who will be guiding us through some speech and cognition activities at Cafe Ashburn.

Our hosts at both locations are offering us a free light lunch, so please RSVP to help us with planning. There’s more information about our cafes on our cafes page.

Hope to see you out and about soon!
Cheers,
Sonia
Sonia@ParkinsonSocialNetwork.org