WEST BROMWICH, England — Steve Griffiths first noticed something was wrong about four years ago. The clues were only little things — putting something down and not being able to remember where, forgetting longstanding appointments — but they were enough to make him worry.
At first, he and his wife, Heather, wondered if it might be stress. Griffiths ran his own tire business, and that meant long days at work and hours at night worrying about the competition. They thought giving up work might improve his health, so Steve took early retirement. It made no difference.
For a while, then, they wondered if perhaps he was experiencing the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.