Hi Robert,

Please feel free to cite my experience with the Smart Lounger. I’ve been using it twice a day with Suzanne’s general PD disk and once a day with her Arthritis disk, all since  Easter week end. When I go to sleep I plug in to my earbuds  the Peter Hubner music – this I’ve been doing since mid March.

To put things in context, I’m 62 and I’ve been diagnosed with PD for nearly seven years and as an index I’ve been on 600mg pd of Levodopa.

First, Hubner’s music is unusual but a positve pleasure to listen to and I’m convinced that it has improved the quality and length of my sleep.

Some of my problems before the  Smart Lounge arrived :

I had been apprehensive about the urgency with which I could sometimes have to go to the lavatory , which of course discouraged my liquid intake and undermined one’s general social confidence.

I  was liable to drool when tired, prone to back ache when standing in queues, and more conscious of the “off” periods when the medicines were not yet kicked-in, making me move slower . For example manoevering oneself in bed could be difficult and even harder in the bathroom . Then there was the slowness of doing buttons up, the nigh impossibility of getting one’s trousers fully up unaided, and the humiliation of needing my food cut up if I froze at a restaurant.

In the last three weeks I have also joined a local “Spinning” class at the local gym for 2-3 weekly 45 minute fast and challenging pedaling sessions during which one can get the pulse rate up to 120-130pm.  This follows my reading of a paper by Jay L Alberts et al of the Cleveland Clinic inJuly 2009’s Neurorehabilitation and Repair.

I realize that this confuses the issue in theory , but in practice whether it’s the Smart Lounger or Spinning – one or more things are really working right and I hope for more improvements. For example I can now again wet shave myself in 3 minutes rather than have to electric shave .
I can pull my trouser up, tie my tie and shoe laces. My gait is improved, and freezing is less likely. My handwriting is “on” for more of the day.  At last I really feel progress and I hope for more ….. on the road to recovery

Regards

Robert Welch
London