Virginia Encore Chorales Concert in Reston
Last Friday, some friends and I attended this free concert at the United Christian Parish. We wanted to support another friend from our support group who was performing, and were delighted to discover that we knew someone else also in the chorale. Everyone enjoyed listening to the performance and joining them in singing some of the songs. A recording was made so if you’d like to see it you can click here to watch it.

The audience was encouraged to “Come sing with us!” and that means you, too! The only qualification to join Encore is to be over 55 years of age. There are no auditions and you don’t have to be an experienced singer. I could go into all the benefits for your voice and lungs, but as someone observed last night, there were smiles on everyone’s faces because singing brings you joy. As there aren’t any chorales specifically for people living with Parkinson’s here in Northern Virginia at this time, you might want to check out the Encore website (click here) and find a chorale near you. There are quite a few.

If you’re thinking that you can’t sing when you’re living with Parkinson’s, please watch and listen to this beautiful performance by people with Parkinson’s from all over the world when they gathered together at the World Parkinson’s Congress in 2016. Click here for the YouTube video.

Cafe Alexandria
We were delighted to welcome Susan Dietrich from the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) at UVA in Charlottesville to our cafe. APDA is one of several national Parkinson organizations and we were keen to learn more about it. Susan told us that APDA is the largest grassroots organization for Parkinson’s, and was founded in 1961 to Ease the Burden, Find the Cure. On their website at www.apdaparkinson.org you’ll find some great resources for webinars, publications, videos, newsletters and more.

Susan told us about a couple of events that might be of interest to you.

16th Annual Parkinson’s Disease Ice Cream Social (free)
Saturday, June 9, at 12:30 pm
Where: Berea Christian School,
1351 Garber’s Church Road,
Harrisonburg, VA
Speaker: Emily Peron, PharmD, MS; Asst. Professor; VCU School of pharmacy.
Topic: How to make the Most of Meds
Refreshments will include hand-dipped ice cream, homemade cobblers, ham sandwiches, chips, sweet tea, and lemonade.
We have it on good authority that the cobbler is AMAZING as is the ice cream. It would be a lovely day trip outing and you might see some familiar faces!
Please RSVP by May 26th 540-810-5210 or conniesuer@verizon.net
There’s another event in Roanoke on June 1st and you’ll find it on our
Community Events page.

GetOld.com
Yesterday, Susan sent me a link to a very different website that I’m having fun checking out. Please don’t be put off by the name, but it’s www.getold.com. Their tagline is Increase Your Life Expectancy.

Cafe Ashburn
Margie Comerford, Speech-Language Pathologist at INOVA Loudoun Hospital visited us this month. She led us in some fun activities to challenge our brains and voices, and shared ideas so we could continue the fun. We played games like Scattergories, and Taboo. Other ideas we talked were the games Mastermind and Trivial Pursuit, and apps and books for logic puzzles. Margie suggested we could find the games at thrift shops and yard sales, and that when it came to trivia games, we might prefer the older versions.
On a more serious note, we learned that cognition is a combination of memory, attention, executive function and problem solving.
* Executive function is the ability to make decisions in a timely fashion, find mistakes and fix them.
* The ability to problem solve is built from memory, attention and executive function.
Margie also leads a Communications Club on Mondays from 11:00 am – 12 noon in the Patient Education Room at Inova Loudoun.
You can contact Margie for more information about speech therapy and communications clubs at
(703)858-6390 or by email Margie.Comerford@inova.org

Fair Oaks Parkinson’s Support Group Meets Tomorrow
Saturday, May 26 from 10:00 to 12 noon
Where? Sunrise at Fair Oaks
3750 Joseph Siewick Dr, Fairfax, Virginia, 22033
Speaker is John Lam, a gentleman who has been living with Parkinson’s for 35 years. He has a very inspiring message to share with us! All are welcome.

Hope to see you out and about soon! Remember to check out the Community Events page of our website!

Cheers,
Sonia
email: Sonia@ParkinsonSocialNetwork.org