Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Official Patients Sourcebook on Parkinsons Disease or A Drinking Life

The Official Patient's Sourcebook on Parkinson's Disease: A Revised and Updated Directory for the Internet Age

Author: James N Parker

This book has been created for patients who have decided to make education and research an integral part of the treatment process. Although it also gives information useful to doctors, caregivers and other health professionals, it tells patients where and how to look for information covering virtually all topics related to parkinson's disease (also Drug-Induced Parkinsonism; Paralysis Agitans; Parkinsonism; Postencephalitic Parkinsonism; Secondary Parkinsonism; Shaking palsy), from the essentials to the most advanced areas of research. The title of this book includes the word official. This reflects the fact that the sourcebook draws from public, academic, government, and peer-reviewed research. Selected readings from various agencies are reproduced to give you some of the latest official information available to date on parkinson's disease. Given patients' increasing sophistication in using the Internet, abundant references to reliable Internet-based resources are provided throughout this sourcebook. Where possible, guidance is provided on how to obtain free-of-charge, primary research results as well as more detailed information via the Internet. E-book and electronic versions of this sourcebook are fully interactive with each of the Internet sites mentioned (clicking on a hyperlink automatically opens your browser to the site indicated). Hard-copy users of this sourcebook can type cited Web addresses directly into their browsers to obtain access to the corresponding sites. In addition to extensive references accessible via the Internet, chapters include glossaries of technical or uncommon terms.



Table of Contents:
Introduction
Overview
Organization
Scope
Moving Forward
PART I: THE ESSENTIALS
Chapter 1. The Essentials on Parkinson's Disease: Guidelines
Overview
What Is Parkinson's Disease?
What Causes the Disease?
Who Gets Parkinson's Disease?
What Are the Early Symptoms?
What Are the Major Symptoms of the Disease?
Are There Other Symptoms?
What Are the Other Forms of Parkinsonism?
How Do Doctors Diagnose Parkinson's Disease?
How Is the Disease Treated?
Levodopa
Other Available Medications for Managing Disease Symptoms
Is Surgery Ever Used to Treat Parkinson's Disease?
Can Diet or Exercise Programs Help Relieve Symptoms?
What Are the Benefits of Support Groups?
Can Scientists Predict or Prevent Parkinson's Disease?
What Research Is Being Done?
What Is the Role of the NINDS?
What Can I Do to Help?
Information Resources
More Guideline Sources
Vocabulary Builder
Chapter 2. Seeking Guidance
Overview
Associations and Parkinson's Disease
Finding Associations
Finding Doctors
Finding a Neurologist
Selecting Your Doctor
Working with Your Doctor
Broader Health-Related Resources
Vocabulary Builder
Chapter 3. Clinical Trials and Parkinson's Disease
Overview
Recent Trials on Parkinson's Disease
Benefits and Risks
Keeping Current on Clinical Trials
General References
Vocabulary Builder
PART II: ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND ADVANCED MATERIAL
Chapter 4. Studies on Parkinson's Disease
Overview
The Combined Health Information Database
Federally Funded Research on Parkinson's Disease
E-Journals: PubMed Central
The National Library of Medicine: PubMed
Vocabulary Builder
Chapter 5. Books on Parkinson's Disease
Overview
Book Summaries: Federal Agencies
The National Library of Medicine Book Index
Chapters on Parkinson's Disease
General Home References
Vocabulary Builder
Chapter 6. Multimedia on Parkinson's Disease
Overview
Bibliography: Multimedia on Parkinson's Disease
Chapter 7. Physician Guidelines and Databases
Overview
NIH Guidelines
NIH Databases
Other Commercial Databases
The Genome Project and Parkinson's Disease
Specialized References
Vocabulary Builder
Chapter 8. Dissertations on Parkinson's Disease
Overview
Dissertations on Parkinson's Disease
Keeping Current
Vocabulary Builder
PART III. APPENDICES
Appendix A. Researching Your Medications
Overview
Your Medications: The Basics
Learning More about Your Medications
Commercial Databases
Contraindications and Interactions (Hidden Dangers)
A Final Warning
General References
Vocabulary Builder
Appendix B. Researching Alternative Medicine
Overview
What Is CAM?
What Are the Domains of Alternative Medicine?
Can Alternatives Affect My Treatment?
Finding CAM References on Parkinson's Disease
Additional Web Resources
General References
Vocabulary Builder
Appendix C. Researching Nutrition
Overview
Food and Nutrition: General Principles
Finding Studies on Parkinson's Disease
Federal Resources on Nutrition
Additional Web Resources
Vocabulary Builder
Appendix D. Finding Medical Libraries
Overview
Preparation
Finding a Local Medical Library
Medical Libraries in the U.S. and Canada
Appendix E. Your Rights and Insurance
Overview
Your Rights as a Patient
Patient Responsibilities
Choosing an Insurance Plan
Medicare and Medicaid
NORD's Medication Assistance Programs
Additional Resources
Vocabulary Builder
ONLINE GLOSSARIES
Online Dictionary Directories
PARKINSON'S DISEASE GLOSSARY
General Dictionaries and Glossaries
INDEX

Books about: Best Cellar or The Wicked West

A Drinking Life: A Memoir

Author: Pete Hamill

Rugged prose and a rare attention to telling detail have long distinguished Pete Hamill's unique brand of journalism and his universally well received fiction. Twenty years after his last drink, he examines the years he spent as a full-time member of the drinking culture. The result is A Drinking Life, a stirring and exhilarating memoir float is his most personal writing to date. The eldest son of Irish immigrants, Hamill learned from his Brooklyn upbringing during the Depression and World War II that drinking was an essential part of being a man; he only had to accompany his father up the street to the warm, amber-colored world of Gallagher's bar to see that drinking was what men did. It played a crucial role in mourning the death of relatives or the loss of a job, in celebrations of all kinds, even in religion. In the navy and the world of newspapers, he learned that bonds of friendship, romance, and professional camaraderie were sealed with drink. It was later that he discovered that drink had the power to destroy those very bonds and corrode any writer's most valuable tools: clarity, consciousness, memory. It was almost too late when he left drinking behind forever. Neither sentimental nor self-righteous, this is a seasoned writer's vivid portrait of the first four decades of his life and the slow, steady way that alcohol became an essential part of that life. Along the way, he summons the mood of a time and a place gone forever, with the bittersweet fondness of a lifetime New Yorker. It is his best work yet.

Vincent Patrick

Pete Hamill's 30 years of writing come to fruition in "A Drinking Life." It is constructed seamlessly, with the pacing and eye for telling detail learned as a novelist and the hard, spare prose of a fine journalist. -- New York Times

Publishers Weekly

Hamill's autobiography entails his long odyssey to sobriety. This is not a jeremiad condemning drink, however, but a thoughtful, funny, street-smart reflection on its consequences. To understand Hamill ( Loving Women ), one must know his immigrant parents: Anne, gentle and fair; Billy, one-legged and alcoholic. The first offspring of this union--Republicans in Belfast, Democrats in Brooklyn--Hamill has a special gift for relating the events of his childhood. He recreates a time extinct, a Brooklyn of trolley cars, Dodgers, pails of beer and pals like No Toes Nocera. He recalls such adventures as the Dodgers' 1941 pennant and viewing the liner Normandie lying on its side in the Hudson River. We partake in the glory of V-J day and learn what life in Hamill's neighborhood was centered on: ``Part of being a man was to drink.'' Puberty hits him and booze helps him to overcome his sexual shyness. But Hamill's childhood ended early. After dropping out of high school he lived on his own, working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and drinking with his workmates. Wanting more, he studied art, soon meeting a nude model named Laura who was a lot different from the neighborhood girls, those ``noble defenders of the holy hymen.'' And escape was always on Hamill's mind. First it was the Navy, then Mexico, but it was always the same--drinking nights which today he can't remember. There were fist-fights and jail time in Mexico and he learned that ``drinking could be a huge fuck you to Authority.'' Back home with a job at the New York Post , he mastered his trade at the Page One bar every morning, drinking with other reporters. Much time was spent in saloons away from his wife and two daughters and he remembers the taunts of his childhood, ``Your old man's an Irish drunk!'' Then one New Year's Eve 20 years ago he noticed all the drunkenness and had his last vodka. When asked why, he said, ``I have no talent for it.'' It may be the only talent Hamill lacks. Author tour. (Jan.)

Library Journal

The author of seven novels (e.g, Loving Women , LJ 4/1/89), Hamill has put in over 30 years as a reporter, primarily at the New York Post , where he was recently named, fired, and then rehired as editor-in-chief. Here he ranges from his Depression-era childhood to his years on the beat and as a recovering alcoholic. When the time comes, he'll be on the Today show to plug his book.

BookList

Malt may do more than Milton to justify God's ways to man, but quaffing mead was not ex-imbiber Hamill's means to metaphysical understanding. It enabled him to defy Authority and partake in a rite of male conviviality. By the end of his boozing days, in the early 1970s, he says he felt more like a wisecracking performer than a liver of life, and so abruptly knocked off the sauce. But his is hardly a story of battling the bottle, a part of his day as natural as sunset; rather, it's another tale of growing up in Brooklyn's evening days, the era of Ebbets Field. That's a tired subject, unless it is done as well as this. Hamill recalls his passages of adolescence--from fighting to fornicating to working to trying to love his father--with an eye of practiced unsentimentality expressed in robust, exclamatory style. Maybe sinking a few drinks per diem isn't the world's best idea, but when a wizened newspaper reporter like Hamill (now editor of the "New York Post") owns up to it and the troubles it begets, it makes great, gritty copy. Drink up!



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