With Shaking Hands: Aging with Parkinson's Disease in America's Heartland

by Samantha Solimeo

Overview

Far from celebrity media spotlight, ordinary individuals, many older and less advantaged, suffer the disabling pain of Parkinson's disease (PD), an illness whose progressive symptoms often mimic old age and cause mobility impairment, communication barriers, and social isolation.

At the heart of With Shaking Hands is the account of elder Americans in rural lowa who have been diagnosed with PD. With a focus on the impact of chronic illness on an aging population, Samantha Solimeo combines clear and accessible prose with qualitative and quantitative research to demonstrate how the disease accelerates, mediates, and obscures patterns of aging. She explores how ideas of what to expect in older age influence and direct interpretations of one's body.

This sensitive and groundbreaking work unites theories of disease with modern conceptions of the body in biological and social terms. Parkinson's disease, like other chronic disorders, presents a special case of embodiment that challenges our thinking about how such diseases should be researched and how they are experienced.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813547121
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	04/15/2009
Series:	Studies in Medical Anthropology
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	581 KB

About the Author

Samantha Solimeo is a Health Research Science Specialist at the Center for Research in the Implementation of Innovative Strategies in Practice at the Iowa City VA Medical Center.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Ethnography and Age in the Field 26

3 It Takes a Little While to Find Out for Sure 46

4 It's a Nasty, Hiding Disease 63

5 I Don't Know What to Blame It On 84

6 I Don't Know What's Worse, Parkinson's or the Medications 100

7 It Gets Worse 121

8 Changing Bodies, Changing Roles 137

9 Conclusion 154

Appendix A Interview Participants 165

Appendix B Selected Resources 175

Bibliography 179

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

"An important and excellent book that describes the experience of Parkinson's disease from the inside: how patients and their family members view it. Thus, it forms a singular contribution to the scientific literature on individual experience and disease."

author of Singular Paths: Single Men Living Alone - Robert L. Rubinstein

"A welcome addition to the literature, focusing on the experience of older adults who are living with this unpredictable, disabling and stigmatizing condition. The author writes crisply, and yet with compassion and sensitivity, as she offers her readers access into the world of ordinary people who often display extraordinary strength and dignity under traumatic life circumstances."

Contemporary Sociology

"The future for medical anthropology must include the ethnography of the neurodegenerative conditions of aging. With Shaking Hands brings that future into the present with a strong description of the lived experience of elderly people with Parkinson's Disease in America."

Harvard University - Arthur Kleinman

"This book is at once a scholarly discourse on an ethnographic study of a cohort of Iowans with Parkinson's disease, and a primer on medical anthropology, Parkinson's disease, and ethnographic research methodology. Recommended."

Choice

"A richly detailed and touching ethnographic portrayal of the experiences of elderly people with Parkinson's disease. It is pertinent reading for researchers and clinicians as well as students, especially but not exclusively those in medical anthropology."

University of California, San Francisco - Judith C. Barker

"The book has at its heart an ethnographic account of the experiences of eight adults in rural Iowa living with PD and their families, and also includes a primer on medical anthropology and one on PD itself. Solimeo writes well, and with affecting sympathy, about life with PD."

Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved

"A richly detailed and touching ethnographic portrayal of the experiences of elderly people with Parkinson's disease. It is pertinent reading for researchers and clinicians as well as students, especially but not exclusively those in medical anthropology."

From the Publisher

"The future for medical anthropology must include the ethnography of the neurodegenerative conditions of aging. With Shaking Hands brings that future into the present with a strong description of the lived experience of elderly people with Parkinson's Disease in America."

— Arthur Kleinman

Harvard University