Tuba and Parkinson’s

[SteveMarcus]

How has the onset of Parkinson’s Disease affected your (or someone else’s) relationship with the tuba?

[MiBrassFS]

I just wanted to mention that there is now a health forum to which admins can add members if they request to join.

[bort2.0]

My initial thought -- and I mean this with full respect and compassion -- is that you need to front-load a lot of your playing now, while things are "better." Unfortunately, it's a degenerative disease, and although the speed of degradation varies, it still only goes in one direction. Jeez, this all sounds terrible to try and write in words on a screen, but I hope that makes sense.

This is very much stretching my memory but somewhere at some point probably 20-25 years ago, I was playing alongside a Euphonium player, an older guy who had some sort of tremor/impairment, which may or may not have been related to Parkinson's. I never asked (or was told) directly about it, but it was obviously present, and not like and FD "oh my lips don't work anymore" sort of thing.

I remember that he played as much as he could, but knew his limitations, especially for exposed parts. He was more concerned about not screwing it up (and dropping out for a few bars) than trying to be a hero.

I also remember:
* He still had a gorgeous tone
* Obviously had been playing all his life
* I thought he must've been a heck of a player when he was younger

Nice guy, and you could tell that he was strongly willed to keep playing in any capacity he could, until it was no longer physically possible. Having seen my own grandparents die from extended and preventable illnesses, with years of hospital care... I thought it was cool as hell that this older guy was finding a way to make it work, and staying musically and socially active, despite his impairment.

[Casca Grossa]

Although not a musician, my uncle has been suffering from it for about a decade now. He was diagnosed in his mid sixties and now resides in a care facility. The last time I visited him, I got him his favorite coffee. He couldn't lift the cup on his own. He has trouble speaking and needs constant care. It just doesn't paint a good picture for tuba playing.

[bloke]

There is really not an opposite disease of Parkinson's, but there's sort of an opposite symptom disease called essential tremor whereby the shaking doesn't begin unless the person uses a specific muscle group to do a task, and then those specific muscles begin to tremor while doing the task.

I completely understand that Parkinson's has many more symptoms than tremors, but that's one of the symptoms and it's the most outwardly noticeable to others.

Someone close to me has this essential tremor condition. They don't play their clarinet anymore, but they still manage to type, and they drive, and they do all their own car repairs - which include deep/extensive car repairs (they own all Toyotas, which are cars which can actually be serviced without disassembling the entire car), they actually have figured out how to sign their name better than they did early on via some strategies, and so on.

Maybe I shouldn't have commented (??) because it's not the same disease, but only has some of the same symptoms. If not, please accept my apologies.

[Mary Ann]

One of the euphs in my quartet has essential tremor. I doesn't interfere with his playing though, which surprised me. I sat behind and to his left in a recent band and he had a neat solo. The man was shaking like a leaf except for his chops! And the solo went perfectly. He's just learned about some drug to treat it and is going to try it; he is a pharmacist and theoretically knows what he's getting into. He's approaching 70 and has had this for a very long time.

Someone I know has had advancing Parkinson's for a few years. She had reached a point where she had to be helped to walk, and then got some device that feeds her L dopa as needed -- and while she has a helper-companion, she walks just fine. I don't know which aspects of Parkinson's that helps with, or if it is different for different people, but what it does for her is amazing. That device is fairly new on the scene.