Objective: To raise awareness in Parkinson Disease personality to encourage them to make changes to their mentality in order to be more flexible. This is because our external world is a reflection of our inner world.

Background: Patients with Parkinson disease share a distinctive Parkinson’s personality traits, characterized by cautious, methodical, law abiding, rigid thinking,  risk-avoiding behaviour and suppress their own urges.

Method: Qualitative analysis is used to analyse patients with Parkinson Disease by observing their behaviour.

Results: Patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) are less flexible in their thinking (rigid thinking). For example, from point A to B, there can be few pathways, but patient with PD thinking often insist on using the straight pathway. For mood vs time, PD patients usually have conflicting emotions and live their life in a flip flop manner. One moment they feel that life is not worth living, while the next moment, they will feel anxious and this lead deteriorating symptoms, and the fear of dying is there. The typical stooped posture in a PD patient could indicate that they have a lot of anxiety. Their base (leg is lagging behind) but the mind is worrying about the future (head is forward). PD have a lot of overt as well as suppressed emotions subconsciously (Eg: tension, worry, guild and anger). Clinically they present with REM sleep behaviours. REM sleep behaviour happened because of disinhibition of emotions with patient’s conscious mind. They have disproportionately high superego. They tend to give in because they were taught since young that disobeying an order or command is not acceptable. They give in consciously but subconsciously they are rather reluctant with a lot of built up inner tension or anger. In daily life, they suppress the urge to retaliate against others. The psychological root for this REM sleep behavior disease is that due to their conscience, they have suppressed their ego during daytime, however during sleep, the urge to fight resurfaces when they dream. They will act out the dream, kick and fight the spouse. Dreaming will act as a safety valve to let go of their inner suppressed urges.

Conclusion: Once they are aware that their rigid thinking can worsen PD control then they are more willing to change to be more flexible.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/does-patients-with-parkinson-diseases-have-distinctive-pd-personality-an-insight-on-the-phenomenology-of-parkinsons-disease/