Hiding Parkinson's

Available for over a year

'When you are first diagnosed it is a bit of an axe falling. You are very conscious of telling people. I told very close family and friends and a couple of work colleagues. In social situations I will hide it.' David Plummer, who is a 48 year old sufferer of Parkinson’s disease joins Jeremy and the BBC's resident doctor, Sarah Jarvis to discuss the stigma surrounding Parkinson's. Of the 127,000 people in the UK with Parkinson's, 40% feel the need to keep it a secret. David Plummer was 40 when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and he now helps sufferers come to terms with the disease. It has not stopped his work as a wildlife photographer. David thinks he had the disease 7 years prior to official diagnosis. A trigger point for him was a twitching arm and tremor under nervous conditions. It took 6 month to get a full diagnosis. Dr Sarah Jarvis discusses diagnosing Parkinson's through a combination of testing for tremor, poverty of movement, and rigidity. It is not just old people who get the disease.