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It has a name — micrographia — and it is one of the most common changes people notice in Parkinson's. Letters start out fine and shrink as the line goes on. Signatures stop looking like your signature. Birthday cards get harder to face.
This page has free printable practice sheets, an explanation of what is actually happening, and an app that measures the one thing most handwriting tools miss.
Print them, use a pen you can grip, and write on paper. Nothing beats paper. These are the same exercise sets that are in the app, laid out for A4.
It runs in your browser — open it, scroll to Printable worksheets, choose letters, words or sentences, and tap print. We do not ask who you are and nothing is sent anywhere.
Two things tend to happen together, and they are worth telling apart.
Consistent micrographia is writing that is simply small throughout — it was smaller last year than the year before, and it stays that size across the page.
Progressive micrographia is the one people describe most vividly: writing that starts at a normal size and gets smaller as the line goes on, so the end of a sentence is half the height of the beginning. It is reported in roughly two thirds of people with Parkinson's who have handwriting changes.
That distinction matters because most handwriting practice — and every scoring app we have seen — only looks at how big a letter is. That can see the first kind. It is blind to the second, which is the kind people actually notice.
The usual advice is to write deliberately large, well past what feels natural, because the internal sense of "normal size" is exactly what has drifted. Practising at an exaggerated amplitude and then checking whether it held to the end of the line is the point of the exercise.
This is general information, not advice about your own condition. Your Parkinson's nurse, neurologist or occupational therapist knows your situation and we do not.
£29.99 once. No subscription, no in-app purchases, no adverts.
Try it in your browser, free Full details and app store links
ReWrite is a practice and wellness tool, not a medical device. It is designed to supplement — not replace — occupational therapy, and it makes no claim to treat or slow Parkinson's.
Happy to send free codes for your members to try, and to do a fifteen-minute slot over video for a meeting — how handwriting changes, what the exercises are for, and what an app can and cannot do. No charge, no sales pitch, and I will say plainly which parts of it are not proven.
Email liam.anstey@gmail.com. It goes to Liam, who built it after his partner had a stroke at 35 and who answers his own email.