A WEEK-LONG conference focusing on Parkinson’s disease was opened in Dublin by Taoiseach Enda Kenny yesterday. It will involve some 5,000 neurologists and movement-disorder experts from around the world.
The Parkinson’s Association of Ireland held a national patients’ conference at the Convention Centre in Dublin as an the opening event of the International Movement Disorder Society’s 16th international congress.
Among those attending was writer and artist Shay Healy, who has had Parkinson’s for the past eight years.
Mr Healy told about 800 delegates it was vital that those with the condition kept active and tried hard not to let Parkinson’s depress them.
“If you give into it, it will take you down so you just have to fight it. Humour is one of the biggest weapons against it. Humour is a powerful weapon as it lets people know we are coping with it.”