One night without warning, Jay Sagen leapt from his bed and grabbed the quilt, then ran downstairs and threw it out onto the street. He was certain there was a large black snake in it. His startled wife Diane hurried after him and tried to explain that nothing was there. \u201cBut he wasn\u2019t listening to me trying to talk sense into him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then Jay began seeing black cats everywhere in the house. He believed there were groups of people on the property at night too, and that a creature called Big Boy was in their bed with them. Sometimes, he believed he\u2019d whiled away whole afternoons talking to his brother in the living room of their cosy California home south of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
He simply didn\u2019t understand when Diane told him his brother was never there.<\/p>\n
Jay, a 77-year-old artist, taught for decades at local community colleges. He was diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease in 2009 after a neurologist observed his tremors and other physical symptoms, including stiffness. Diane, a therapist now aged 73, was not scared: \u201cWe\u2019ll deal with it, if that\u2019s what it is,\u201d she thought.<\/p>\n
Preparing for the tough adjustment to life as the primary caregiver to a person with a neurodegenerative illness, Diane knew the disease was associated with health problems ranging from difficulty sleeping to tremors and slowing of movement. She also expected that it would take a toll on her time and energy as she assisted Jay with his physical impairments.<\/p>\n
What she didn\u2019t know \u2013 and what few people even within the medical and caring professions realise \u2013 is that over the course of their illness at least half of all people diagnosed with Parkinson\u2019s disease will develop another set of symptoms known as Parkinson\u2019s disease psychosis (PDP). The impact on the patient and their family \u2013 often because they don\u2019t know what is happening \u2013 can be devastating.<\/p>\n