According to a story from BBC, Alex Hill was just eight-years-old when his mother, Sarah, started forming a hunch that something was off. The first warning sign came when Alex complained about leg pain several days after participating in a session of PE. Another unsettling sign was his habit of dragging his leg when he started to get tired.
An initial doctor’s visit led to a dismissive response; he was not convinced that something was off about Alex. However, Alex continued to behave strangely, and developed obsessive behaviors, such as packing multiple pairs of extra underwear for school. Eventually, he began to lose his balance and developed a tremor that messed up his handwriting. After getting checked into a children’s hospital Sarah received a shocking and bizarre diagnosis; her son had Parkinson’s disease. You can learn more about this disease here.
Parkinson’s disease is almost always diagnosed in people over age 60, and only about five percent of patients develop symptoms before age 40. This makes Alex’s case highly unusual, since he was just 11 when he received the diagnosis. Eventually, Sarah gave up her job as a fitness instructor to take care of him. Treatment with Levodopa helped with his physical symptoms, but it also made the boy hyperactive.
Sadly, the treatment was not effective for long, and a year later Alex was confined to a wheelchair. Alex underwent a more experimental treatment called deep brain stimulation, which helped reduce his tremors; nevertheless, he was unable to continue his formal education. As Alex’s condition and needs got more urgent, Sarah, who had taken care of him for many years, decided it was best to move him to a care home.
