Yesterday, the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) offered a webinar on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, for the Parkinson’s disease (PD) community, featuring a panel of speakers. The panelists included Dr. David Aronoff, an infectious disease expert; Dr. Katherine Leaver, a movement disorders specialist at Mount Sinai; Dr. Caroline Tanner, a movement disorders specialist at UCSF; Ted Thompson, JD, Senior VP of Public Policy with MJFF; and Maggie Kuhl, Director of Research Communications with MJFF.
They discussed what we currently know about COVID-19 and PD, how social distancing may help prevent spread, and how to manage challenges and isolation, touching briefly on the potential impacts of the situation on PD research. The webinar ended with a Q&A session.
In a recent Brain Support Network caregiver support group meeting (conference call), one caregiver raised the issue of her husband with Lewy body dementia feeling panicked about the pandemic and worried that the caregiver was going to become sick and die. This came up during the Q&A in the webinar:
Q: For caregivers of someone with cognitive impairment or dementia, any tips for how to approach or explain what is going on?
A: Use simple language, give reassurance that you are still there for them. They will notice the disruption in their normal routine. Try to make some kind of daily routine or reassure them, reorient them with other topics and activities to provide some relief from the news.
One subject raised during the webinar was: what if I have Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and test positive for COVID-19? The answer is:
Like any other illness that occurs on top of your PD, you may notice a temporary change or worsening of your PD symptoms, which is very common. If you have tremor or rigidity, this is likely to be worse. Non-motor symptoms such as anxiety can also temporarily worsen when you are ill. There isn’t a sudden worsening of your actual baseline PD, it’s just that your body is under increased stress due to the virus and has a harder time coping. Once you start to recover and improve, your PD symptoms should return to baseline. … PD will not necessarily make your recovery from COVID-19 slower; recovery time will depend on how healthy or frail you are in general.
For further details about the webinar, check out these notes. Lauren Stroshane with Stanford Parkinson’s Community Outreach listened to the webinar and shared her notes here:
parkinsonsblog.stanford.edu/2020/03/information-on-coronavirus-for-the-pd-community-webinar-notes/
The webinar recording is available on the MJFF website here: (registration required)
www.michaeljfox.org/webinar/information-coronavirus-parkinsons-community
Robin