My husband almost walked into a wall the other day. He has almost falls, those times when he goes to sit down where he thinks the chair is and it isn’t quite right. He almost missed the bed last night, sitting too close to the edge. He tends to walk too close or will bump me because he doesn’t recognize that I am standing next to him. His sense of where his body is located has become skewed thanks to his diagnosis of PD.

This is also referred to as losing visuoperceptual ability and means just that, not being able to perceive where things are in the space around you. In my husband’s case, it includes not being able to perceive where his body is in relation to those things. It isn’t an indicator of any form of dementia, it is a unique challenge and it appears tied to the decreasing dopamine in the brain. As the disease progresses, some people find it more difficult to recognize colors and contrast which appears to negatively impact their understanding of spatial relationships.

I try to keep an eye out for those times when my husband is particularly wobbly to minimize his falls. I watch as he sits and even help guide him down at times. When he stands too close, I move away to give us both space. I help him in and out of bed. The main thing I do is try to be patient and understand that this is simply one more thing he cannot control. It’s one more reason I hate the disease and love the man as he continues fighting against it every single day.

For a look at one of the smaller studies conducted visit Visuospatial dysfunction and problem solving in Parkinson’s disease – PubMed (nih.gov).