Parkinson Social Network2 Cafes in One Week and More!
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
Nice weather for a duck
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
Parkinson Social Network 