Gordon Chaplin gingerly stepped out of the car at the top of the steep hill behind his farmhouse, sporting a bandage on his hand from a fall the day before. He gripped his cane as he shuffled through the knee-high grass. He stopped every few feet to catch his breath, leaning on his caregiver for support.

Looking out at the distant Adirondacks and Catskill mountains, he thought back to the years when he could run up the hill with ease.

“Things just don’t work as well as they used to. In fact, sometimes they don’t work at all,” said Chaplin, 81, who has owned the farm for over 40 years. “There’s nothing worse than having your whole life … falling apart.”

Nearly a decade ago, he began experiencing symptoms he couldn’t explain. His once-pristine handwriting became unreadable, his face took on a permanent look of worry, and he acted out his dreams while he slept. After years of inconclusive test results from various doctors, he received a diagnosis: he had Parkinson’s disease, an incurable degenerative brain disease that affects motor functions and causes cognitive impairment. He had no family history or genetic predisposition to the disease.