About a year and a half ago, other World Parkinson Congress Official Bloggers and I compiled this list and I posted it. It went viral, with over 6000 viewers in one week. Many viewers from around the world contributed their own simulation ideas in the comments section. I’ve added them here. If you have more ideas now, leave them in the comments below!
What’s It Like Having Parkinson’s Disease?
- Wear a leg weight on one leg. This will throw off your gait and cause you to limp.
- On the same leg, also wear a slipper that is 4-5 sizes too big. This will help you to “drag a leg/foot.”
- Every two hours take a break and find a bathroom. Quickly, within one minute. This is what bladder urgency is like.
- When you wake up in the morning, walk backwards for the first 45 minutes until your meds kick in.
- Simulate taking meds every three hours, then miss a dosage. To simulate freezing, walk backwards again, or crawl, until the missed dosage kicks in.
- When the phone rings, simulate a freezing spell. Don’t pick up your feet to answer it. Instead, drop to your hands and knees to try to crawl to the phone in time.
- Do not carry a glass filled with liquid because your arm tremor will make you spill it. Alternatively, try to drink from a full martini glass as a friend gently shakes your arm. Note: Don’t waste a good martini doing this!
- Get a leather belt and a cheap serrated plastic knife like you’d use on a picnic. Try cutting the belt with the knife. This will simulate what many Parkies experience cutting meat.
- Hold a cell phone in your “affected hand” while a friend gently shakes your arm as you listen and speak to the person you’re calling.
- Hold a cell phone and try typing a text message with your lame hand while a friend gently shakes your arm.
- To experience dyskinesia, which is a side effect of many Parkinson’s medications, move your torso right and left for 15 minutes without stopping.
- At a crosswalk, wait through three lights before you cross the street.
- On one hand wear a thick rubber glove like you’d use for washing dishes. Try picking out 39 cents from a handful of change. Then, still wearing the glove, try to remove your driver’s license and/or credit card from your wallet.
- Try to type or text while wearing the same thick rubber glove.
- Now type a long email, or school paper, or other document using only one hand.
- The next time you attend a cocktail party, wear a 5-lb. or 10-lb. wrist weight. Then hold your glass in that hand as you stand and socialize, trying to keep the glass level and at waist height or higher.
- Try eating or drinking anything while going down ski moguls on a toboggan while your arms are tied with a bungee cord to the side of your body. And if you want to experience the emotions that go with having Parkinson’s, do all of this on an unfamiliar hill with a blindfold on.
- Stand up, spin around until you’re dizzy, then try to walk in a straight line, the heel of one foot always coming down just in front of the other foot’s toe.
- Try walking up a steep incline without bending your knees or swinging your arms.
- If you’re right handed, unload the dishwasher with just your left hand while your right arm hangs listlessly by your side. (If you’re left handed, unload with your right.)
- If you’re right handed and use a computer mouse, move the mouse to the left side of the computer and manipulate it with your left hand.
- If you’re right handed, use just your left hand when you wipe your butt after a bowel movement.
- While sitting in a chair with knees bent, lift both legs with feet about 6 inches from the floor. Hold them up there while trying to relax and watch TV.
- Try turning over in bed without using your arms.
- Try speaking through a garden hose that is stuffed with cotton. See how many people say that you need to talk louder. Or how many ask you, “Why do you mumble when you talk?”
- Forget twirling spaghetti on a fork. It can’t be done.
