For Caregivers

A Caregiver Provides Essential Care
Who is a caregiver? A husband, wife, partner, son, daughter, or neighbor are just a few examples of possible caregivers. A caregiver provides essential care to Parkinson’s disease patients, assisting them with everything from day-to-day care to getting them to and from their healthcare-related appointments. Moreover, caregivers provide physical and emotional support. This support enables Parkinson’s disease sufferers to maintain their activities of daily living (e.g.,walking, working, talking, cooking, dressing).

Parkinson’s Disease Basics
Parkinson’s disease is a disease of the brain that involves the deficiency of an important chemical messenger called dopamine (pronounced DOPE-a-meen). Dopamine is affected in people with Parkinson’s disease. Since dopamine is an essential messenger that communicates movement signals from the brain to the rest of the body, it plays an important part in body movement and mobility. What happens is that Parkinson’s disease reduces dopamine production in the brain by causing brain cells to die. When these brain cells die, dopamine production goes down, too.

When the brain’s dopamine production is reduced by Parkinson’s disease, Parkinson's symptoms start to develop. For the Parkinson’s patient, movement may become more uncontrolled, with either too much movement at rest (shaking), too little movement, or stiffness.

Visit the "What is Parkinson's Disease?" page for more information. Learn about the different Parkinson's disease symptoms, treatment options and resources available for those living with Parkinson's disease.

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