In the last year or so, Guelph artist Barbara Salsberg Mathews has gone viral, launched a global awareness campaign for Parkinson’s Disease, helped create a new class at the University of Guelph and more.
Now, she’s sharing her story with others through the Michael J. Fox Foundation, a non-profit founded in 2000 by actor Michael J. Fox dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease.
“What an honour to be invited to create these videos for Michael J. Fox Foundation,” she said. “I’m so tickled pink. Michael J. Fox is one of my heroes.”
Salsberg Mathews was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2020. In a video posted Thursday as part of the foundation’s Parkinson’s Disease awareness campaign, Salsberg Mathews shares her initial reaction to the diagnosis, and how she came to terms with it.
“It was awful. I broke down and cried. I never expected to hear such news.”
But she also talks about how she learned to become her own advocate, and the support she’s received through Parkinson’s support groups.
“It’s very important to know you’re not alone – there are other people walking in your shoes,” she said.
It was shared on the foundation’s Facebook and Instagram pages “to help people know about our stories.”
She also contributed to a feature the foundation is creating, gathering different voices of people with Parkinson’s to ask a specialist questions about the disease. In it, Salsberg Mathews demonstrated some of the mime work she’s been doing to help her symptoms.
“They’re very interested in the research we’re doing with mime and people with Parkinson’s,” she said. “So they wanted me to demonstrate and show some examples of how the techniques help people with movement disorders.”
She said it’s great the work is being taken seriously.
“They even gave a little airtime for the project that the University of Guelph is doing with me, training trainers and doing research on Mime over Mind,” she said.
The feature video will be longer. It likely won’t go up until the summer, and will be available to watch on the foundation’s website.
She said it feels incredibly meaningful to share her story and her work with others through the foundation, and hopes to collaborate with the foundation more going forward.
