As a CareGiver for 20 years I can tell you flat out, Don, embarrassment is a perfectly natural, normal response when your loved one is acting goofy, no matter what the cause. Sometimes Harold says or does things that really make me uncomfortable. Feeling, and constructively coping with ANY emotion should not be taken as a sign of incompetence or meanness or lack of acceptance in a caretaker. The physical stuff is pretty easy for me now, but the other day Harold was berating a social worker at the daycare we were looking at, and I was humiliated and ashamed of him.
In our family we call the strange facial expressions, uncontrolled head movements and wild arm swings "flapping." It does come from too much sinemet, and as the disease progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to get the sinemet to kick in without bringing on the flapping. I think this is called hyperkinesia, and I think dyskenisia is the curling up of the hands and arms in a stiff, flexed position like a person with very bad CP. (Harold gets that, too.)
Anyway, feelings can never be inappropriate, only behavior can be.
