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At St. Therese, Chesapeake Parkinson’s support group meets monthly

The Tidewater Virginia Weekend Parkinson’s Disease Support Group celebrated its fifth anniversary in March.

Barbara Voelkel, who considers herself “the gatherer” rather than director, has Parkinson’s Disease herself. Her husband, Ron, is her caregiver.

“It is a place where we can gather and let our hair down and not worry about people staring at us,” Mrs. Voelkel told The Catholic Virginian.

“Some of us walk a little funny,” she explained. “Others have some tremors and shakes.

“One fact about people with Parkinson’s Disease is that no two people have the same symptoms.”

The group meets at St. Therese on the first Saturday of the month at 1 p.m. Normally about 10 people attend any one meeting because not all 20 members are always well enough to attend the meetings.

The group meetings frequently have a speaker. Past speakers have included a shoe salesman, physical therapist and officials with Medicare.

Fortunately most of the members have a person they refer to as the “caregiver,” normally a spouse or adult child who lives nearby and can offer assistance. But some are alone and have no one to serve as caregiver.

“That becomes a real challenge for us becomes our group becomes the caregiver,” Mrs. Voelkel said.

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