Chicopee helps raise awareness for Parkinson’s disease with flag raising

Stefany Scliopou is presented with a proclamation from Mayor John Vieau recognizing Parkinson’s Awareness Month in Chicopee.
Reminder Publishing photo by Tyler Garnet

CHICOPEE — With April being Parkinson’s Awareness Month, the city of Chicopee hosted a flag-raising event on April 7 to educate the community about the disease and raise awareness.

Mayor John Vieau, state Rep. Shirley Arriaga, and the Parkinson’s Foundation New England Chapter Community Education and Outreach Manager Stefany Scliopou spoke during the ceremony, which was held inside the City Hall auditorium.

The Parkinson’s Foundation strives to make life better for people with Parkinson’s by improving care and advancing research towards a cure, according to the organization. Through its work, they bring together people with Parkinson’s, their care partners, medical professionals and researchers to ensure every person with Parkinson’s has access to the best care.

National Parkinson’s Day is observed annually on April 11 to raise awareness about the disease. Parkinson’s is a brain disorder that affects movement and can also involve other changes that impact daily life. It is a progressive condition, meaning symptoms get worse over time.
While there is currently no cure yet, treatments can help manage symptoms and improve quality of life, according to Scliopou.

“It can be managed,” Scliopou explained. “People can live a long, happy life with Parkinson’s, making sure they have a health care team that will assist them, that can help with medication, exercise and support groups. Those are really the three big things that help folks manage their day-to-day.”

Parkinson’s is the second-most common progressive brain disorder after Alzheimer’s disease. It affects more than 10 million people worldwide, including about one million people in the United States.

Each year, around 90,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and that number is expected to grow.

Scliopou said that the disease affects everyone differently, but early signs may include a mild tremor, loss of smell, soft speech or smaller handwriting.

Common movement symptoms include tremor in one or both hands, stiffness, slow movements and balance problems. Non-movement symptoms include sleep issues, constipation, depression and anxiety. Thinking changes are also common and can affect quality of life as much as movement symptoms.

Scliopout talked about the importance of keeping track of how you are feeling each day to determine if you need further medical assistance for your symptoms, especially because there are so many associated with Parkinson’s.

“Really advocating for yourself. I can’t stress that enough, because you know your body best,” Scliopou stated. “There’s a lot of symptoms, which is why Parkinson’s goes undetected or undetected for so many years because it didn’t start with something like losing a sense of smell or a sense of taste, which COVID, of course, didn’t help things.”

If a symptom impacts your day-to-day life and continues to progress, it is important to reach out to your doctor for further testing before determining if specialists and a plan for treatment are necessary.

Arriaga stated that many of her colleagues were busy with budget season, but she wanted to show her support and be there on behalf of other state officials to help bring awareness to the disease.

“I am not a professional, and I have learned a lot over the course of the past four years. Thanks a lot to Stefany [for] educating us and raising that awareness,” Arriaga stated. “It’s important that we understand what it does to a person. It affects people’s moods, their memory, their sleep and their ability to move physically. As Stefany has stated, it doesn’t happen the same for everyone; it is very different, so understanding that it might look different in your household, versus someone else’s, and how you can be supportive for these folks because it’s a sentence, right? Once you’re diagnosed with Parkinson’s, it’s forever.”

The event concluded with Vieau reading a proclamation and the unveiling of the Parkinson’s Foundation banner to recognize April as Parkinson’s Awareness Month in Chicopee.

To learn more about the disease, ways to help, or about the foundation, readers can visit Parkinson.org.