She Turns Tragedy of Parkinson’s to Triumph

Teddi Winograd has been told so many times by the invisible they of life that she can’t do something, it has become a joke to her.

“They told me I couldn’t have another baby. I did. They told us not to go into business. We did it anyway,” she said at her Beverly Hills home.

The business, Teddi of California, a women’s sportswear company, was a huge success because of the partnership of Winograd and her husband, Sam. “He gave me motivation, direction and the power to make decisions. We had different spheres of influence and we never messed in each other’s kitchens,” she said.

When competition from abroad began to erode profits, the Winograds sold their company and planned a life of leisure and travel. But instead of traveling from country to country they went from doctor to doctor. Sam had been diagnosed with having Parkinson’s disease.

“I was shocked. Sam, the former City University of New York basketball macho-man, the man we used to call ‘The General,’ had a disease for which there was no cure. I was in despair for many years. . . .

“At the beginning, we didn’t socialize. We changed all of our habits. And we went from place to place for advice and medical attention. I realized there was no facility which housed everything patients needed who suffered from Parkinson’s,” she said.

Parkinson’s is a slowly progressive disease of unknown origin that causes a small area of cells in the middle part of the brain to degenerate and die. Their loss produces a reduction in a vital chemical called dopamine, and that causes such symptoms as tremors, stiffness of muscles, slowness of movement and loss of balance.

It is not fatal, but there is no established medical or surgical way to cure or prevent it. The pace of progression varies greatly among patients. A variety of treatments have been found that slow the onset or progression of symptoms and enhance the quality of life.

Winograd went from grief to action last year when she met Dr. Stefan Pulst, director of the division of neurology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. They hit it off right away, and recognized a common goal.

“She thought we needed a center that covered all of the needs of Parkinsonians,” Pulst recalled, “and I was interested in why certain nerve cells stop functioning later in life, why they function very well up to a point and eventually die. She was well-informed, we had similar styles--we both make good decisions fast, work on them hard and know the right people to give authority to.”

What normally might have taken five years, Winograd did in one. The Parkinson’s Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai opened in October. Winograd founded it, organized it and raised more than $120,000 to get it rolling. Cedars-Sinai has more or less matched that sum with the value of labs, offices, equipment and staff.

The center is a full-service resource for Parkinson’s patients and their families, and provides treatment that helps prolong the periods of normal functioning for people with Parkinson’s.

Sadly, the center comes too late to offer much help to Sam Winograd. He lives at home, but is very ill.

Teddi Winograd’s long-term goal for the center is to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease. And they better not tell her it can’t be done.

The Parkinson’s Disease Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center: (310) 855-7933.