Newly diagnosed and stages….

I was reading a post on Facebook regarding a woman whose husband had just been diagnosed with PD at age 61.

I was interested to read that he was assessed by a Neurologist as being at ‘stage 2’. I wonder what that even means? What value does labelling stages have? Is this helpful I wonder? How many stages are there? Surely, as in life in general, as an individual how we age and how any condition affects us depends on so many factors.

I personally don’t feel that talking about stages is something that I would find helpful. I have been told my PD is a ‘slow burner’ and that is enough for me. Does that mean I have 10 years of ‘relative normality ‘ or 15, 20 years? Is this something I should even focus on?

Surely whatever ‘stage’ we may be at, the key to living this life with PD is to live it positively focussing on what we can do and achieve in the here and now. For me focussing on a deficit model of progression in stages is likely to focus us negatively on the life we have left to live.

We as individuals – in my opinion – would fare better in acknowledging our capabilities rather than any perceived deficits.