Parkinson's Disease

 

    I recently watched a YouTube video called “Dad Living With Parkinson’s,” provided by Attitude. This video was a glimpse into Andy McDowell’s life as he lives with early onset Parkinson’s Disease. Throughout the video, it shows a glimpse from different peoples’ perspectives on his life, as well as his own.  There is a special part of this video when Andy discusses how he told his two daughters about his condition. After his two daughters were still struggling to understand, he wrote a poem called  “Smaller,” and later made an award winning video. 

 

    Throughout this video, I learned to better understand what a person with Parkinson’s is going through mentally before and after a diagnoses. As a person without Parkinson’s, you realize how frustrating it can be to not be able to fully control your body movements or how your brain processes things. I thought about how alone he must have felt when trying to make decisions about work and family. Also, I can empathize as to how much anxiety he must have felt to explain his condition to his children and others. I leaned more towards the video because I felt like it was more of getting to see exactly what he was going through as he told about it. In relation to the course, I learned how important it is for us therapist to encourage big movements and emotional support throughout the journey. I highly recommend watching this because I learn so much within a 30 minute video, and I think it gave myself an opportunity to see all sides of Parkinson’s within his life and others around him. 

 

 

McDowell, A.(2016. July 26). Dad living with parkinson’s.AttitudeLive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bp9n60m3AY