A worked example showing how each of the 12 PIP activities can be described by someone living with Parkinson's disease. Every answer is written in the first person, in the plain wording assessors look for, and each one weaves in the reliability factors that decide how an activity scores.
Parkinson's is much more than a tremor, and a form that only mentions shaking hands hands over a fraction of the picture. The slowness is often the bigger problem. Bradykinesia means every movement is smaller and takes longer to start and to finish, so ordinary jobs like doing up a shirt or getting through a meal stretch out to three or four times the time they used to take. Add the stiffness in the arms and legs, the freezing that stops you mid-step or mid-task as though your body has stalled, the balance that has gone, the voice that has gone quiet, and swallowing that no longer works properly, and you have a condition that reaches into almost every activity on the PIP2 form.
The hardest part to put into words is the on and off. Parkinson's medication works for a set number of hours and then wears off, so the same person can be managing at eleven in the morning and unable to get out of a chair by three in the afternoon. An assessor only ever sees one snapshot, and if your form describes your best hour that is the version they will work from. The rules are on your side here, because an activity only counts as something you can do if you can do it safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and in a reasonable time. Being able to dress yourself once, an hour after your tablets, is not the same as being able to dress yourself, and your answers need to say so plainly.
Two things get left off Parkinson's forms far too often. The first is the early morning. Before the first dose of the day has taken effect most people are at their stiffest and slowest, and that is exactly when washing, dressing and breakfast happen, so describe what that hour really looks like instead of skipping ahead to how you are by midday. The second is the help you get and the help you go without: the wife who cuts up your food, the son who sets out the tablets, the shoes that had to be swapped for slip-ons, the dinners eaten cold because they take an hour. Put real numbers in wherever you can, such as how long a task takes, how many hours a day you are off, and how often you choke, freeze or fall in a week. The example below does exactly that, activity by activity. The DWP always makes the final decision, but describing your day accurately gives your form the strongest chance of being understood.
What to cover for each one. Your paid form writes the full answers for you.
Describe what a tremor does to peeling, chopping and lifting a hot pan, and say plainly whether you have dropped, spilled or burnt yourself doing it. Mention slowness and any freezing that leaves a meal half made, along with the aids you rely on such as a perching stool, a spiked chopping board or using the microwave instead of the hob. Be clear about the difference between a good hour after your tablets and the hours when you are off and nothing gets finished.
Parkinson's medication only works if it is taken to the clock, so say how many doses you take a day, how exact the timing has to be and what actually happens to you when a dose is late or missed. Mention any dosette box, alarms or the person who sets your tablets out and reminds you, and any pump, patches or home physiotherapy you have to manage. Say if the tremor and stiffness make getting tablets out of a blister pack difficult on your own.
Describe how stiffness, poor balance and slowness make getting in and out of a bath or shower unsafe, and mention a shower seat, grab rails or a bath board if you use them. Explain what you cannot reach or manage properly, such as washing your hair or your back, and how much longer the whole thing takes now. Say who has to stay within earshot in case you freeze or fall, and how different it is first thing before your medication works.
Explain the difficulty getting on and off the toilet when you are stiff or off, and mention a raised seat, grab rails or anyone who has to help you. Describe the clothing side of it too, because belts, buttons and zips have to be managed quickly and that is exactly what your hands cannot do. Include any urgency or accidents caused by not being able to get there and undressed in time, and say how often that happens rather than only that it sometimes does.
If your voice has gone quiet, flat or slurred, say so and describe what it means in practice: being asked to repeat yourself, not being heard from the next room, giving up on phone calls. Mention any speech and language therapy you have had and anyone who has to repeat things for you or speak on your behalf. Keep this answer to how well you are understood rather than to how much you get out of the house.
This one is about taking in and understanding written information, so tiny cramped handwriting is not what it asks about. What can count with Parkinson's is blurred or double vision and eye movements that make you lose your place on the line, or the memory and concentration changes that mean an official letter has to be read through with you more than once before it stays. Mention who does that for you and what has been missed when nobody did. If you can read a letter or a road sign and take it in on your own, leave this one alone.
Describe how the tremor, the loss of expression in your face and not being heard make you avoid company, and whether embarrassment or low mood keeps you at home. Mention the encouragement or the company you need before you will face seeing anyone, and how often plans get cancelled on an off day. Keep it about coping with people rather than about physically getting there, which belongs in the mobility questions.
This asks about the money decisions themselves, not about how slow and fiddly coins and cards have become, which is a hand difficulty and belongs with the activities that cover your hands. What can count with Parkinson's is the memory and concentration changes that make bills, direct debits and budgeting hard to keep on top of, so if someone has had to take that over, say what was going wrong before they did. Some Parkinson's medicines can also bring on impulsive spending, and if that has happened to you it belongs here and is worth raising with your specialist. If the decisions themselves are still fine, leave this one alone.
Explain what freezing and unsteadiness do to leaving the house, and whether you will only go out if someone is with you in case you stall at a kerb or a doorway. Describe any anxiety about being stranded if your medication wears off while you are out, and any difficulty working out or holding on to an unfamiliar route. Leave the walking distance itself for the moving around question so both answers stay credible.
Give the distance you can manage on a normal day and say what forces you to stop, whether that is freezing, a shuffling gait, pain or the fear of going over. Mention your walking aid, anyone who walks beside you and any falls you have had, including what caused them. Make clear whether you could cover that distance again after a rest, and how much shorter it gets when you are off.
The tips above are general pointers. Your paid form gives you a full, ready-to-copy answer for all 12 activities, written from your exact conditions, medication, aids and bad days, not a general example. This is a worked example for Parkinson's; yours is written for you. £99.99 one-off.
This is a worked example, not a script. It shows one honest way a person with Parkinson's might describe their worst and most common days, so you can see the level of detail and the plain wording that assessors are trained to look for. Please do not copy it word for word. Your own answers should reflect your Parkinson's, your own tremor, stiffness and freezing, the aids you actually use and the help you actually get or go without, because that is what the assessment is about and that is what makes an answer ring true. Parkinson's affects everybody differently and changes over time, so write about the stage you are at now rather than how you were a year ago.
Some of the activities will not apply to you at all, and that is fine. Being honest about what Parkinson's does not change makes the difficulties you do describe more believable, so there is no need to stretch every question. The suggested descriptor on each card is only there to show which difficulty the answer is pointing at; never write a descriptor letter or a point number on your real form, because the assessor works those out and the decision is always the DWP's. If you would rather start from your own words, tell us about your health and we will write your answers from your own conditions, in the same first-person style, ready for you to read, edit and copy onto your PIP2 claim form or AR1 review form.
Tell us about your Parkinson's in your own words and we will write one full activity for you, free, before you pay anything.
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