Couldn’t be bothered

For over three years now, I’ve been observing the effect of daily use of red/near infrared light hat devices on people with Parkinson’s disease.

I continue to be astonished at the way red/near infrared lights can improve the non-motor or non-movement symptoms – especially apathy. I think apathy is probably one of the most cruel of the many Parkinson’s symptoms.

One chap described it as the couldn’t be bothereds. After a lifetime of always being too busy to sit down, he found it was difficult to get himself out of his chair. Still lots of things to do, and things he loved doing, but he just couldn’t be bothered doing any of them. He wasn’t being lazy, he wasn’t giving up – he was been undermined by the relentless degeneration of Parkinson’s, now ruthlessly at work in the motivation circuits of his brain.

After a month using an Eliza bucket light hat, the couldn’t be bothereds had gone, and he was busy again. This was two and a half years ago. The couldn’t be bothereds haven’t returned, in fact, it is quite the opposite.

I’ve seen this pattern often, daily red lights making it easier to get going, to do things, to be interested in things, to connect with others, to re-engage with life, to find purpose again.

Apathy is a powerful and vicious symptom – it inexorably takes the person from themselves and their family. The standard medications for Parkinson’s don’t have any impact on apathy, nor on any of the non-movements symptoms of Parkinson’s.

Daily red/near infrared light definitely do seem to target these symptoms, not only apathy, but sleep quality, fatigue, anxiety, depression. I’ve consistently noticed improvements in auditory processing as well.

Remove apathy and the person regains themselves and their connections with their world.

A powerful and debilitating symptom of Parkinson’s disease can now be improved – just wear those red light every day.