[theo_luddite]

Sorry to hear it too jjamez, you and your family are going to have a lot on your hands to deal with.

Have a friend I first met down here back in the 90's, another Yorkshire lad, that's been living with it for years. Takes more pills a day than 3 of us could probably buy (officially) from the supermarket in one visit. He was diagnosed not long after I came back from Canada, so best part of 20 years ago. There's a bit more light on the horizon now, I understand, than just throwing a cocktail of pills at it, but his wife has her hands full with him, add it to other things that happen as you get older without Parkinsons, though her son helps her out a lot too, and it's not any fun for anyone.

He's now in his 70's and when he's awake he can still hold a good conversation and asks about all his old mates down the local, not that many of his old mates still go down the local these days, but he can often doze off mid-sentence so you don't really know what he was going to say or ask.

I've another pair of friends, married to each other who've both gone down the Alzheimer's route within a few years of each other and both were (still are really) very highly intelligent people.

I'm not sure which is worse. Friends/family that are physically able but can't recall what they said/asked 10-15 seconds ago so ask you the same question 4 or 5 times before they move on to something else (but they know what they and you were doing 10/15/20 years ago), or folk that are mostly compos mentis (other than from the effect of medications) and their bodies become rapidly less physically able to function than they normally would at their age.

Families and friends that help their kin and friends should be supported far more than we do in this so called civilsed society, both physically and financially.