It is frequently commented that Parkinson’s disease leads to a softening of the voice. For example, see the blog named A soft voice in a noisy world. But I don’t find so much written about the second half of that blog, that is, the effect of noise on Parkinson’s patients.
The other day, however, I came across an old thread in a Parkinson’s forum in which several people said they were prone to being startled by noise. This actually made me quite relieved because it showed that I wasn’t the only one who had noticed this. I wasn’t alone in suffering this. It was possibly a common symptom, even though it wasn’t very prominent in the literature.
There are days and times when noise becomes a real problem for me. One type is background noise, disturbing because it is never-ending and interferes in my thought processes. These noises can be an extractor fan, a drill or, if I’m in the street, the noise of nearby traffic. They may cause me to freeze or, at least, prevent me from concentrating on the task in hand.
Another type of noise is repetitive and grating in some way, such as a fork being scraped on a plate or the on-off clicking of a ballpoint pen. And then there is the noise that is sudden, loud and unexpected. This noise seems to be amplified in my ear and often startles me into a jumpy reaction often accompanied by a cry of surprise. Examples are cutlery being dropped on a plate or an unexpected knock on the door. This week I literally jumped out of my chair when I heard a very loud knock at my office door at the University, from a colleague who presumably compensated for the softness of my voice by assaulting my earlobes. We had a laugh about it but I did ask them to knock more softly in the future! And when, at home, my family think I over-react by unintentionally jumping at a sudden noise of their making, I explain to them. Remember, it’s not something People with Parkinson’s can easily avoid.
parkinsonSpace 