Kid Jensen: Disease has made me hallucinate
BROADCASTER David Jensen has described having hallucinations caused by Parkinson’s disease as he urged others with the condition to join him in a clinical trial.
The TV and radio presenter, 72, described seeing a dog ‘who doesn’t really exist’ and ‘bumping into a strange figure on the stairs when I get up in the night’.
The Radio 1 stalwart and DJ, nicknamed ‘Kid’ aged 18 when he was the youngest radio presenter in Europe, has been living with the disease for more than a decade. He said the hallucinations ‘are very much a part of my life’.
He is calling for others with Parkinson’s and those with Lewy body dementia to join a trial named Top Hat to see whether the low-cost drug ondansetron could alleviate hallucinations. It is funded by Parkinson’s UK and led by University College London, with trial sites around Britain.