The Parkinsons Coach TM
Welcome to The Parkinson’s CoachTM
Parkinson’s is a whole life, whole person neurological disorder, affecting the family as greatly as the individual diagnosed with the disease. Life with Parkinson’s means dealing with great uncertainty. Often, the most distressing symptoms:
➢ Are not related to motor difficulties,
➢ Are harder to manage medically
➢ Are a source of great confusion and fear
➢ Ultimately have greater impact on quality of life
What Is the The Parkinson’s CoachTM?
Most of the challenges Parkinson’s disease presents to family are problems in daily living. Although families are often sent to psychotherapists to “treat” the fear, anger, frustration and stress, these are really not issues of mental or emotional health. Rather, they arise from situational problems any individual or family managing a chronic medical condition might encounter. Families need a Coach not a “Shrink (click here to understand the difference).”
A Coach guides individuals and families, helping them to respond more effectively to the challenges of Parkinson’s. By finding solutions to problems, fear, stress, and frustration need not become so overwhelming that mental health treatment becomes necessary in the first place.
By offering extensive experience and specialized knowledge about the disease, The Parkinson’s CoachTM helps families and individuals:
➢ Evaluate the unique problems and challenges they face
➢ Develop practical solutions with tangible goals and clear steps for achieving them
➢ Identify strengths that can be brought to bear on the problems
➢ Identify weaknesses that are hindering effective responses to the disease
➢ Maintain motivation during tough times
What the The Parkinson’s CoachTM Not
Paul Short, Ph.D. is not a physician and is not offering medical advice of any kind. When in doubt about any aspect of your physical health, you should always consult your healthcare team.
Although Dr. Paul Short is a licensed clinical psychologist, The Parkinson’s CoachTM is not intended to assess, diagnose or treat emotional/mental health problems you or a family member might be experiencing. This site draws upon Dr. Paul’s training as a behavioral scientist and is in no way intended to be clinical in nature.
Please feel free to link to anything on this site and to cite brief excerpts you find helpful or interesting. Remember, though, that I retain copyrights to everything on my site.
I welcome comments and invite you to post your thoughts and experiences. Comments are moderated for your protection. In order to protect confidentiality, before making your entry public, I may request that I be allowed to edit details that might specifically identify who you are. In this age of search engines, you may not wish to have personal details accessible to the world.
Dr. Paul
The Parkinson’s CoachTM
7 Responses to The Parkinson’s Coach TM
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Like a Beginner, I’m usually looking on the net for posts that may aid me. Thank you
I am always looking for ways to handle the motor problems of Parkinsonism. My wife has LewyBodyDementia with Parkinson’s. LBD I have been dealing with since 2008 and it’s getting worse.
Lewy Body Disease is one of the toughest aspects of PD. I will be writing a blog entry about living with a partner’s growing dementia from LBD.
Dr. Paul
I look forward to reading your blog about Lewy Body PD. Do you also have insights as to how this affected someone with TBI and developmentally disabled?
Dr. Short, We received your name from Mary S @ VoiceAerobics.My husband was recently diagnosed with PD but apparently was a misdiagnosed early onset over 25 years ago.Would appreciate the opportunity to correspond with you regarding our situation. Thank you.
i was diagnosed over 3 years ago and are thinking of filing for disability. i am 60, what are my best chances to do so? i work in aa state office and find when the medications start to ware off, ; i can’t do my job.
You might want to talk with your doctor about a different medication schedule to see if you can moderate the wearing off effect.
The decision as to whether to go on disability is a complex one and there are many things to consider. I wrote a blog about going on disability for the American Parkinson’s Disease Association Young Onset website. I have put a version of that piece on this site: .
Dr. Paul