title: Elaine Riat.
abstract: Elaine Riat is a nurse adviser who counsels and advises callers to the Parkinson's Disease Society helpline. She trained as a nurse in the 1970s in Torquay and held a succession of posts in Devon, Lincolnshire and London, where she worked as a surgical sister, a nursing officer in older people's care and a specialist nurse. After leaving the NHS she trained as a counsellor, working in bereavement and for a small women's health charity.