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Parkinson’s Disease and Exercise Parkinson’s disease (PD) took my lifelong friend Carl Miller. While I was reluctant to believe that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s—he was hard on his body and had many complaints—he was obviously dead serious. I also have another friend who is coping with the disease. It is clearly time to learn more about PD. Believing that exercise is the best medicine, I also want to explore self-help as a way of managing the disease. I found that Parkinson’s is a complex disease—and that exercise helps on several levels. As usual, I will do my best to explain what I’ve learned in everyday language. No scientific jargon unless absolutely necessary, with an emphasis on the bottom line. Parkinson’s Disease Basics I learned on Wikipedia that Parkinson’s is a multifaceted disease. PD is a long-term degenerative disorder that begins with movement. The symptoms usually emerge slowly. The most obvious early symptoms are tremor, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulty walking. Cognitive and behavioral problems may also occur, with depression, anxiety, and apathy affecting many PD sufferers. Those with Parkinson's can also have problems with their sleep and sensory systems such as vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, and balance. As if that wasn’t enough, dementia becomes common in the advanced stages of PD. * * * Carl Miller and his wife Sandra went with us to the Stark Center conference on my book Take Charge. I noticed that he was having trouble getting around; he fell down getting out of a chair at one point. I didn’t realize what was happening. Now I know. Going to Austin under these circumstances shows what a wonderful friend he was. Doesn't seem fair for a man who had devoted much of his life to helping people stay strong. A sterling example—a prominent citizen of Santa Fe—is a man he introduced to Olympic Weightlifting at a time when most people have long since retired to their rocking chair. The guy was still lifting competitively in his 90s. Few in this age group could match him. Carl was so proud of his performance.
This photo shows Carl A few years before he began having movement and
other problems-- Photo by Carol Bass Benefits of Exercise The Parkinson’s Foundation has studied exercise as part of a Parkinson’s Outcomes Project study. Started in 2009, the Parkinson’s Outcomes Project is the largest-ever clinical study of Parkinson’s disease with more than 13,000 participants in five countries. https://www.parkinson.org/research/Parkinsons-Outcomes-Project I’ll review the high points of the study and then link you to the entire report. As you would expect, exercise helps maintain balance, mobility, and daily living activities. Research has shown that exercise can improve gait, balance, tremor, flexibility, grip strength and motor coordination. For people with mild to moderate PD, targeted exercise can address specific symptoms. For example: aerobic exercise improves fitness, walking exercises assist in gait, and resistance training improves strength and dexterity. Less well-known is how exercise affects the brain. There is a strong consensus among physicians and physical therapists that improved mobility by exercising may improve thinking, memory and reduce risk of falls. Exercise may also improve cognition, depression and fatigue. * * * Dopamine enables neurons in your brain to communicate and control movement. In Parkinson's, one type of neuron steadily degenerates. It doesn't have a signal to send anymore, so your body makes less dopamine. The chemical imbalance causes physical symptoms. Researchers at the University of Southern California looked at the brains of mice that had exercised on a treadmill. Here’s what they found about dopamine function: Exercise did not affect the amount of dopamine in the brain, but the mice that exercised were using dopamine more efficiently. Exercise improves efficiency by modifying the areas of the brain where dopamine signals are received. * * * Finally, the researchers emphasize that the time to start exercising is “Right now!” Whether or not you have PD. Here’s why. In PD, a special kind of neuron (brain cell) that produces the chemical transmitter dopamine gets damaged and lost. However, there is a lag between the time when neuron loss begins and when PD movement symptoms start to show. By the time most people are diagnosed, as much as 40 to 60 percent of their dopamine neurons are already gone. The reason people with PD don’t experience symptoms until they reach this point is that the brain can compensate for the loss of dopamine neurons by adapting. In fact, the brain reshapes itself throughout life in response to experience. Scientists call this ability to change and compensate "experience-dependent neuroplasticity." * * * For more details, you can read the entire report online: https://www.parkinson.org/Understanding-Parkinsons/Treatment/Exercise/Neuroprotective-Benefits-of-Exercise June 1, 2021 Comment on this article: FEEDBACK
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