Mary Beth Skylis shares tips she encourages her father to implement.
Degeneration is painful to witness, but even more painful to experience. The tasks one might previously have been able to tackle become difficult or impossible.
It’s not uncommon for those with a degenerative disease like Parkinson’s to experience changes to their memory and difficulty in staying focused. But it’s often the physical symptoms like tremors and stiffness that can make a person feel like they’re degenerating.
While loss is a part of this disease, there are three coping mechanisms I encourage my dad, who has Parkinson’s, to implement to provide him emotional relief from the disease.
- Consistently communicate: The loved ones of people living with Parkinson’s don’t always understand why certain choices are made. In my dad’s case, he tends to be more resistant to going to social gatherings at this stage of his disease, and I often struggle to understand why. But it helps me see the situation from a place of empathy when he explains that he’s worried about his medications kicking in or about being seen in public in his current state.
Communicating with loved ones not only helps folks know where the other person is coming from, but it also might make the person with Parkinson’s feel less alone in their experience.
- Engage in mindful movement: There’s a lot of research showing that exercise is good for us. But it’s especially important in the battle against Parkinson’s. When it comes down to it, exercise not only might slow the disease’s progression, but it also can provide the body with feel-good chemicals and make it stronger. This makes it an indispensable tool for battling despair. Exercising might look like practicing yoga, cycling, or joining a non-contact boxing class.
- Create structure: As Parkinson’s disease becomes increasingly demanding, it can be easy to become apathetic. But apathy doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t help anyone manage the disease to the best of their ability.
For this reason, it can be helpful if a person creates some type of structure to motivate them to get up in the morning, even if they don’t want to. This could be anything from caring for a dog to supporting a spouse. It could also mean going to the same exercise class every week, regularly meeting a friend for lunch, or sticking to a daily routine.
The brain really likes routine, which can provide a little bit of relief when a person living with Parkinson’s is struggling with the massive challenges that it brings to their life.
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