What to you do when you have trouble comunicating

Hi @redtail. I don't know what is going on in your case, but I will add some thoughts from my experience with Parkinsons. I find is often hard to figure out what the basis for new developments. Early in my experience, I panicked that a new development was in fact the disease progressing. However, it can be some unrelated cold I did not realize I was fighting or due to a particularly stressful period. In your case, a hospital tends to bring out stress and can make symptoms more pronounced. I am not a doctor, but there are options for treating stress or anxiety that you may want to consider. Good luck!

hello @redtail my symptoms (tremors) also are more pronounced at doctor's appointments. I'm only 54. two suggestions i have. 1. do you have a good friend that knows your situation and is willing to help at appts. 2. look into beech band watch the videos--its worth a try. it helps with my tremors it might help you.

I agree having friend or family member go along with you to at least some appointments, even just one or two, would be helpful.

Staff and doctors seem to pay a little more attention if there is a second person with you. You second person can also help to fill in or smooth over the gaps in the conversation. I think a second person accompanying you reduces the tension for all concerned. A second person could help you to explain what you yourself find difficult to explain.

For me, a big part of living with this illness is becoming conscious of how it affects me, and accepting support, and asking for support, from others.

Best wishes!

My wife goes with me to my doctors visits and I find it uncomfortable when they speak and ask her the questions ( I can usually speak, though sometimes slow while trying to think of what I am saying, but it is nice for them to also speak to me. They usually do but not enough.

I have memory propblems and sometimes forget what I was going to say before Ieven get to the verb in the sentence I had begun. . But, to the extent that you can, if you try to commit the thought to paper, there may be enough clues in it to give the doctor a hint ofwhat you want to tell himabout . Just the act of writing it down may help you remember it. because it's giving you some muscle memory Itwon't work 100% of the time, -sometimes I look at what I've put on paper - and ask mysself, "I wonder what I meant by this?" later. BUT one good thing that could come from showing your gibberish to the doctor is that the gibberish itself may be enough to give him a clue - because the writing of some PD patients becomes tinier and tinier . Then, of course ther's the option of Charades if you're truly desperate. I'm only half joking. Memory is stored in a number of ways . for instance muscle memory is the reason (at least in my prime) I could type without looking at the keyboard. When one of my grandson's was 5, he decided he wanted to write a story (His 9 year-old-sister had been wworking on a story and I had been helping her edit it. )But at 5, he really didn't have a good way of 'writing' a story, so I told hm him all he had to do was talk and I would type it for him. He thought it was magic! but I think it's related to muscle memory. Once I was at the bank and didn't remember my password for something but I could ltype it if I had access to a keyboard. Unfortunately, I live in Germany and the keyboards for German speakers aren't the same as they are for ENglish speakers. If they had been the same, I woln't have had to have gone back home to look it up. I don't know if you've ever heard of people who are afraid they'll forget something so they tie a string around their finger to help them remember. It may just be a supersticion but that sort of thing has some credibility, And from time to time I've seen some people who hold workshops to teach business people how to remember names of folks they meet. and some of the techniques involve associating the person's name with some characterisric of the person. If you get really desperate, you could try Charades.I find myself doing that when there's something I want to tell lmy husband (and unfortunately the only part of the thought I had earlier that I felt was really important was the only part I remembered., so we have oru own little flight into silliness but sometimes that renegade thought is wrestled to the ground in the course of our charades. (When I was a kid, and the class got too noisy for the teacher to bear, sshe would make us write "I will not talk in class " 100 times I wonder if the punishment aspect of it wasn't her only objective. I wonder it she also thought that it would help us remember not to talk in class.

@jatonlouise that is some good points you made