Singer Rob de Nijs: "Life does not end with Parkinson’s"

When it exactly started, Rob de Nijs (77) can hardly put his finger on it. “I fell regularly. Once I even hit a concrete floor behind the stage after a performance. I also noticed that my hands started to tremble more often. In close-ups of recordings I only saw how bad it was afterwards. Then I told during a performance that I probably had a tremor but that the songs remain beautiful. There was a moment of silence. Then I got applause. At that moment I did not know that I had Parkinson’s disease. “

About two years ago, De Nijs (77) was diagnosed. His treating physician is currently Bas Bloem, professor of neurology at Radboudumc in Nijmegen and an international authority on Parkinson’s disease. He says that this brain disorder certainly does not only occur in older people. “Up to 20 percent are younger than fifty years, and the peak is between fifty and seventy. So it is often people who are still in the middle of life. The disease manifests itself differently in everyone. For example, one patient mainly suffers from trembling and a disturbed balance, but the next patient has other motor problems such as stiffness and slowness. The disease can also be accompanied by poor sleep, lazy bowels, urination problems, less smell, difficulty thinking and depression.”

Dopamine deficiency

Bloem explains that the disease process has been going on for years before the first symptoms appear and then just continues. “In the brainstem is the so-called black area that produces dopamine, a substance that influences our mood, our ability to plan and organize, but also to move. In Parkinson’s disease, that area is damaged and there is a shortage of it. dopamine. At a later stage, other areas of the brain can also deteriorate. It is a complex disease, which can cause both physical and mental limitations.”

The fact that De Nijs informed his public about this fairly quickly after the diagnosis helped him a lot in processing it. “That was an enormous liberation. It is also good for fellow patients that I come out with it. If I do that as a well-known Dutch person, then they dare to do it too.” Bloem agrees and applauds that attitude. “After all, there are good treatments to make life bearable.”

Sweet and sour

De Nijs now also benefits from this. He takes levodopa to make up for the dopamine deficiency and receives physical therapy for walking and balance. “I’ve had a whole life sweet and now I just have to taste the sour. I’m fairly laconic about that. I mostly feel fine and life doesn’t end with Parkinson’s. I still perform every week. My voice has I didn’t suffer from it. On the contrary, I can rely on my voice even more than before.” Bloem explains that the latter is partly caused by positive emotions that lead to the release of extra dopamine.

Of course, Parkinson’s disease entails limitations, De Nijs experiences. But in addition to the professional help, he also receives a lot of support at home from his wife Jet, who is a nurse, and from his eight-year-old son Julius. “He’s always checking to see if there’s anything in the way or lying around that I could fall for. He worries about me and often says, ‘Let me do it, Daddy.’ That is so very moving. That gives me a good feeling.”