Info booth to mark World Parkinson’s Day

The Central Coast Parkinson’s Support Group will mark World Parkinson’s Day and Month on April 11 with an information booth in the foyer of Gosford Hospital.

Plain language information will be available on Parkinson’s disease and where to find support if you are living with Parkinson’s or caring for a loved one with the disease.

It is estimated that there are more than 660 people living with Parkinson’s in the Central Coast area, however, the Parkinson’s community is much larger than that if you factor in carers and family members of people with Parkinson’s.

That means more than 1,300 people are affected by Parkinson’s in some way in our region alone.

initiatives to reduce motor vehicle accidents involving children and boost road safety awareness,” he said.

“The Australian Government will continue working to improve road safety for pedestrians, especially children, in partnership with organisations like the Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation and Central Coast Council.”

The program on the Central Coast will involve a pre-survey of attitudes about child pedestrian road safety; a community awareness/ educational campaign with educational resource materials supplied to the preschools and after-school care facilities; and a post-survey of attitudes to child pedestrian road safety to gauge the impact of the project. At the end of the project, the awareness and education materials will remain at the participating centres and a summary of the results will be available later in the year via the Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation website.

For more information about the Little Blue Dinosaur Foundation visit www. littlebluedinosaur.org.

Source: Media release, Mar 20 Blue Planet PR

Parkinson’s is a progressive, degenerative condition of the central nervous system.

Neurological diseases are the world’s greatest contributor to disability – and Parkinson’s is the most prevalent neurological condition.

It has no cure.

There are currently more than 200,000 people living with the disease in Australia, including more than 69,000 people in

NSW.

By 2040, the number of people living with Parkinson’s in Australia is expected to double.

Parkinson’s is more prevalent than breast, prostate, and bowel cancer combined, yet it receives far less government funding than those diseases. With more than 50 symptoms, Parkinson’s is complex, misunderstood and in some cases misdiagnosed.

Men are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s than women.

Common Parkinson’s symptoms include shaking and tremors, rigid and stiff muscles, slowness of movement and a frozen facial expression.

Non-motor symptoms include anxiety, fatigue, pain, sleep problems, depression, eating and swallowing difficulties and more.

Loss of smell and small handwriting may be an early sign of Parkinson’s.