Term Paper on "Effects on Children of Patients With Parkinson"

Term Paper 6 pages (2083 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

children of parents with Parkinson's disease (PD)?

GENERALIZATION: There are definitely psychological and social / emotional problems associated with the children (of all ages) of PD patients, but the general consensus among scholars is that not enough is known about these dynamics. Still, what is known is that having a parent suffer from PD can be devastating for a child, and so it is another case of a chronic disease not only affecting the person stricken, but affecting the entire family in a negative way. More research is needed, and it behooves the medical community to find the needed funding to proceed at the earliest possible opportunity.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT STUDYING the CHILDREN of PD PATIENTS? Indeed, one of the initial problems in addressing this worthwhile question is, according to an article in Parkinsonism & Related Disorders (Schrag, et al. 2004), that there has historically been a dearth of adequate tools for measuring the affects of Parkinson's patients' offspring. Still, that having been said, the authors of this article explain how they have worked to develop substantive questionnaires through interviews and survey techniques to begin the process of measuring the psychological effects on children of having a parent suffer chronically from PD.

And from those initial questionnaires, the authors intended - as reported in their article - to actually provide the basis for a tool, or instrument if you will, to be used as a way to fill in the vacuum that hitherto existed in the field. The first set of questions sent to children of PD covered four categories: "The help you give"; "Your relationship with your parent with Parkinson's disease"; "Your own well being"; "Your feelings." At the end of the questionnaire the participants were asked, "Are there any other important areas of your life affected by your parent's Parkinson's disease? If so, please say which areas."

The questionnaires provided to children ages 12-18 were quite different than those above the age of 18, but all in all, the authors say in their article that the surveys they conducted - their preliminary questionnaire - provide good insights on the "quantitative...impact of parental illness on adult and adolescent children of PD patients." The variations one might expect in surveys taken on children from different age groups were there; and although the study was "relatively small" (a total of 89 children of PD patients ages 12-48), and 67% of the 89 who completed the questionnaire were over 24 years of age, the work conducted has "adequate psychometric properties" in the offspring of PD patients, the authors concluded.

More research is needed, prior to the present rudimentary questionnaire project developing into a research tool that may have more empirical applications, according to the writers.

WHAT DO WE UNDERSTAND ABOUT CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT PER SE? In Chapter 5 of the book, an Introduction to Early Childhood (Waller 55-69), author Tim Waller points out that when looking into the basic issue of child development per se, one must come to realize that whole field of study is under review by researchers and psychologists. Generalizations about any category of people are not a safe way to approach that category, and when it comes to childhood generalizations are next to useless, Waller asserts. Childhood research typically is defined "in terms of a relatively narrow range of psychological aspects such as social, emotional, and cognitive or intellectual and physical development," Waller writes.

In order to gain a hands-on understanding of childhood, it is valuable, Waller explains, to understand that childhood is "a mobile and shifting" experience, not a "fixed" dynamic. Indeed, there is no such thing as a "normal" child, and there never has been, the author points out. And so to study children in a Western setting - whether those children have parents with PD or some other chronic disease - is not relevant to the big picture, since "the situation of most of the world's children is very different..." from the experiences of Western children.

Indeed, children around the world have plenty of problems to cope with quite apart from whatever chronic illness their parents may be afflicted with. For example, Waller writes that "1 in 6 children is severely hungry"; "1 in 7" have "no health care at all"; there is no safe water supply for 1 in 5 of the world's children"; "over 640 million children live in dwellings with mud floors or extreme overcrowding."

And the "new sociology of childhood," according to Waller's paraphrasing of researchers James and Prout, includes these approaches: "childhood is understood as a social construction"; "childhood is a variable of social analysis"; "children's relationships and cultures are worth of study in their own right"; "children are active social agents"; and studying childhood involves "engagement with the process of reconstructing childhood in society."

The statistics that Waller provides in terms of the stress and agony placed on the culture of childhood is absolutely frightening - and makes the study of children of PD parents seem almost benign by comparison. To wit, 2 million children, mostly girls, "are exploited in the sex industry" annually; and of the 15 million children orphaned by AIDS, "80% are African."

WHAT IS it LIKE to BE a CHILD and LIVE WITH a PARENT WITH PD? One good person to ask that question of is the daughter of Muhammad Ali, Rasheda Ali. Rasheda's father, the internationally revered former boxer and currently peace activist, has PD and she said in an interview that she was deeply saddened to see him "robbed of two of the greatest assets he relied on to win over the public as a young boxer - his physical prowess and verbal sparring savvy" (ABC News 2005).

One day Rasheda's son, Nico, asked his mommy, "Why is Poppy shaking?" She was not certain how to answer; "I was caught off-guard," she said, which inspired her to "...learn a little bit more about the illness..." She said in the interview that she learned PD is an incurable and "progressive nervous condition associated with the destruction of brain cells that produce dopamine." It affects roughly 6.3 million people worldwide, she says, and she has written a children's book called I'll Hold Your Hand So You Won't Fall: A Child's Guide to Parkinson's Disease.

In her book, Rasheda Ali covers "16 of the most common Parkinson's disease symptoms" that concern children who may not understand why their loved ones "behave certain ways" when they have PD. "When I was about 11, we just saw Dad's voice soften and he would walk a little slower and then of course we would see the tremors," she remembers. "It didn't strike me as odd. I just thought my dad was getting older." But as the years passed, and the shaking got worse, Rasheda knew something terrible was wrong with her dad.

You [as a child] have to be prepared" for the fact that "it's going to be a long journey," she said. And the most important message she wishes to share with other children whose loved ones have PD, is this: "Never give up hope; the medical community continues to make breakthroughs all the time."

ANOTHER CHILD of a PD PATIENT, Lesley Rees, a consultant paediatric nephrologists, writes that she was 10 years old when her mother was diagnosed with PD. "She had been asked to walk across the front of a lecture theatre to show the characteristic gait" of a PD patient" (Rees 2002) Rees explains. "She was humiliated, and I was angry." Rees writes that she was aware something was awry with her mom by the "slow, relentless progression of symptoms and the loss of the mother..." that she had known. The effects on a child "are both practical and emotional," Rees asserts, mentioning that many PD patients "prefer to withdraw from society."

For Rees personally, "it was the end of family activities; we no longer undertook our regular Sunday bicycle rides, meals out became an impossibility because of the practical difficulties of eating, and family holidays ended." That sounds quite devastating, especially to a loving family, to have holiday celebrations - a wonderful time for family reunions and bonding among cousins, aunts and uncles - simply come to an abrupt halt.

Worst of all," beyond the shaking of her mother's arms and not being comfortable inviting her friends over to the house, Rees said, "...the emotional effects of this terrible illness. The frequent falls and difficult getting up meant that I would often return from school to find my mother on the floor, where she may have been for some hours." And moreover, Rees was a teenager trying to break away from her parents, and now, she sees her mother deteriorating physically, which breaks her heart but keeps her at home as well."

For Rees, who eventually went to school and became a doctor, it "certainly increased my sense of isolation"; these years later, she looks back in the article and hopes that medical teams "have a better understanding of the difficulties encountered… READ MORE

How to Reference "Effects on Children of Patients With Parkinson" Term Paper in a Bibliography

Related Term Papers:

Children Dealing With Parents Suffering With Parkinson Term Paper

sociology and the effect of disease on family members. Specifically it will discuss the effects on children with a parent suffering from Parkinson's disease. Parents who suffer from Parkinson's disease… read more

Term Paper 6 pages (2125 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Child Development / Youth / Teens

---

Patient's Perspective of Parkinson's Disease Term Paper

Parkinson's Disease: A Patients Perspective

Being diagnosed with a progressive neurological disease is never easy for a patient or family member. Recently my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. A… read more

Term Paper 6 pages (1647 words) Sources: 1+ Topic: Disease / Virus / Disorder / Injury

---

Psychological Effects on Children Who Are Caretakers of a Parent With Dementia Thesis

Psychological Effects on Children who are Caretakers of a Parent with Alzheimer's Disease

The Psychological Stress of Caring for a Parent with Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's is one of the worst… read more

Thesis 8 pages (2483 words) Sources: 4 Style: MLA Topic: Psychology / Behavior / Psychiatry

---

Alzheimer's Disease: The Onset as Alzheimer's Diseases Term Paper

Alzheimer's Disease: The Onset

As Alzheimer's diseases is believed to be the "dementing order" because of the recognized changes in the behavior and line of thinking of the person with… read more

Term Paper 8 pages (3283 words) Sources: 33 Topic: Disease / Virus / Disorder / Injury

---

Psychological Theories as Applied to Gerontology Research Paper

Marketing Mix

Gerontology and psychology: Approaches to mitigating the negative aspects of aging

Youth is a temporary state: most human beings will eventually become old. Yet psychology has traditionally devoted… read more

Research Paper 10 pages (3341 words) Sources: 5 Topic: Psychology / Behavior / Psychiatry

---

View 100+ more related papers  >>