A consideration of what I’ve learned from my teachers (Achayras). So much I could talk about! Hope, purpose, a sense of letting go. An altogether holistic/total yoga approach. The overall learning message I've taken from my teachers is that it is this combination and integration of approaches which is most effective: nutrition, hydration, movement and emotional well being.
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Mirroring and Rehearsal Therapies for Parkinson's Disease
Movement in humans is a learned behaviour. We learn to move mainly by watching other people go through the motions: we are not born with any innate ability to move around independently. As babies and toddlers, we spend years watching and mimicking our parents, programming our brains with the data they provide. Our brain knows all about walking before we even attempt to walk ourselves, through unconscious observation. Later, we start to get the hang of it through intensive practice, and especially by falling down and making mistakes. Encouragement and supportive instruction from adults help us to keep practising until we have, at last, developed the ability to move independently. But imagine, if as we started to trying to walk, when we fell over on the second attempt, our parents said "oh dear, walking is not for you"! Unfortunately, this is precisely the message people with PD tend to be given.
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Hands, Fingers and Parkinson's Disease
I have done a lot of hand/finger stimulation and experimented to optimize such exercises, in the spirit of Curiosity and Play. I've personally found significant benefit in pursuing this line of research. Indeed, I have managed to recover a lot of my independence and quality of life through hand and finger therapy, and I know just how much of a major part it has played in my own progressive symptom reduction.
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Social Engagement and Parkinson's Disease
Recently, I described how the "Polyvagal Theory" of Dr Stephen Porges not only provides an elegant explanation for Parkinson's Disease and all its symptoms, but also suggests the actions we can take towards healing. Here, we return to this Nervous System (NS) dysfunction perspective of PD, and explore further how it informs us about what we can do to progressively decrease our symptoms.
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Walking, Cycling and Dancing: Ankle Mobilization in Parkinson's Disease
In this article, we explore, with the assistance of my friend and mentor, Cheryl Townsley, Health & Wisdom Coach, how the concepts of stress interruption and nervous system resetting help us understand why walking, cycling and dancing - exercises that inherently involve mobilization of the ankle joints - are so beneficial for People with Parkinson's Disease (PwPs), and why we need to keep practicing these regularly.
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The Vagus Nerve and Parkinson's Disease
I first discovered the Vagus Nerve (VN) when I was researching how Parkinson's Disease begins in the gut: "Braak's Hypothesis" of the disease states that the problem spreads from its origins in the digestive tract to the brain, using the Vagus Nerve as the conduit. My interest was further piqued when I read that people who had had their VN severed via a vagotomy - a surgical "solution" for stomach ulcers - appeared to have significantly less likelyhood of developing PD.
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Smovey Rings and Applications For Parkinson's Disease
"Smovey Rings" are a general health and wellness tool that combine exercise and vibration, which have particular beneficial applications for Parkinson's Disease. Indeed, these hand held "rings" were invented by Johann Salzwimmer, an Austrian Tennis player and a person with Parkinson’s, who actually initially designed them specifically to help himself. So it is not hard to understand why these are proving beneficial now with many other people who also have neurological conditions.
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A Naturopathic Doctor's Approach to the Treatment of Parkinson's Disease
Profile of Dr Laurie Mischley: a new breed of naturopathic doctor, not only able to prescribe medication, but also fully educated in dietetics and nutrition. Laurie specializes in helping clients with Parkinson's Disease, and is working at the cutting edge of research on the disease. The purpose of this post is to further highlight the work of Dr Mischley, and also the benefits of choosing a holistic PD doctor. For updates or news, follow Laurie's facebook page.Write here…
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Pro-Active and Practical with Parkinson's Disease
Playing Card Therapies for Parkinson's Disease
I find I can shuffle, deal, turn, tidy up, halve and gather the pack of cards. It can be quite stiff and difficult but this seems to be one of those things, like playing with my basketball, which allows me to almost always access some movement, this time for my fingers. Indeed, I find this is giving me more and more knowledge of my hands again. You can see me performing this type of exercise at the end of the video below.
Read MoreBasket Balls, Music and Reversing Symptoms of Parkinson's
I highly recommend anyone with Parkinson's get a basketball or a netball - the weight and feel matters a lot - and just play, feel, stimulate the muscle memories which are still there. Bounce, balance, catch, throw your way back to moving, every single day. Explore, play, be curious. Practice, but make sure you have fun with it. Enjoy whatever movement you can release, no matter how small. Feel good when you manage to extend your range. Feel good factor = dopamine reward = more movement = more feel good - and that is science fact. In the video I am playing by myself, the therapeutic effects are magnified by the social quotient of playing ball with family members and friends by massive amounts.
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Coloring and Dot-to-Dot Book Therapy for Parkinson's Disease
I immediately had a gut feeling this was likely to be one of those "ah ha!" moments, due to the following reasons:
- visual stimuli are massively important for People with Parkinson's;
- the shrinking of handwriting is a classical symptom of Parkinson's onset and we need to constantly challenge all such symptoms to keep the disease at bay;
- relaxation and escaping ingrained stress response is absolutely key to improving symptoms of Parkinson's;
- continually trying something new and challenging our brains to create new neural pathways is key to pushing the disease back and back.
Neurologic Music Therapy for Parkinson's Recovery
I recommend anyone interested in Parkinson's Recovery to take a look at Jim Kennedy's research and follow his journey of self-experimentation into NMT. You will find Jim to be very positive and upbeat - no doubt because he has chosen to fill his life with music. You can follow Jim's work via his Facebook Page.
Read MoreMovement Recovery with Yo-Yo Stress Balls
Deb had the unique insight that a kind of stress ball (a squeezy, bouncy ball which fit the human hand well) which comes with an attached elastic string and a velcro finger or wrist strap would be hugely beneficial. She based this on our discoveries of how some hand-eye co-ordination movements are relatively easy for people with Parkinsonsim's. She was right!
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Learning How to Walk Again with Parkinson's Disease
.People with Parkinson's tend to shuffle when we "walk". We take very small steps, hardly lifting our feet off the floor at all. We often trip over things and lose our balance. It is part and parcel of that terrible posture, the stooped over "Parkinson's Stance", which many of us develop when we do nothing to correct it. The resulting "Parkinson's Shuffle" is an extremely inefficient way to move around and is so very tiring.
Read MoreParkinson's Disease: A New Hope
In this video, I want to begin to show you what happens when we start to integrate the Out-Thinking Parkinson's strategies into new combined interventions and that, indeed, the whole quickly becomes much greater than the sum of the parts. This, then, represents the Out-Thinking Parkinson's whole. I carried on playing with these ideas for some time after making this video. And then I laughed. I laughed long, loud and deep. It was the type of laugh which hasn't left my lips in over seven years. This is why I decided to call this "A New Hope", because not even PD can withstand the power of Giggles and Glee.
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Ball Game Based Therapies for Parkinson's Disease
A very simple, but extremely effective therapy for movement recovery and progressive symptom reduction in Parkinson's Disease is to incorporate playing with balls of various types, sizes and textures. The hand-eye co-ordination and sensory feedback seems to open up access to movement considerably, presumably because it brings in other pathways and regions of the brain in to help.
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Boxing Exercises for Movement and Balance Recovery
I had an amazing afternoon learning boxing at Rock Steady Boxing Seattle and the best part of the whole process was the support that all the participants gave to each other. I met the owner, Karen Johanson, via LinkedIn, and since I live in Seattle, and have an interest in exploring all avenues to help People with Parkinson's, I sent her an email and asked to meet. She was very welcoming and I offered to show up and volunteer in anyway needed so I could get an in-depth understanding of what a class entailed.
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Bat and Ball Therapy for Parkinson's Disease
A simple bat & ball set was just about the first thing I bought when I started exploring toys which could help me unlock movement to start pushing back my Parkinson's Disease symptoms. Once I began to play with them while my PD drugs weren't working - in an "off" state in which I didn't have my much access to movement - it was a complete revelation! The shear degree of movement that suddenly came back in just playing "keep it up" with the bat and ball was a joy, especially in terms of neck movement and core rotation. The fact that while I was doing it, much of my other symptoms (rigidity, unfocused eyes, breathing problems, pain) went away, at least in the moment of play, was massive in re-thinking about my condition, and how to live well with it.
Caregiving for a Person with Parkinson's Disease
Here at Out-Thinking Parkinson's, it is our mission to help not only People with Parkinson's, but also the people who love and care for them, those who also have, in a very direct way, their own lives touched by the disease.
One of the most valuable contributions we can make, we feel, is simply to express the feelings and thoughts of what it is like to be a person affected by Parkinson's or to care for someone with the disease. We hope this humanization of PD will help others in the same situation come to terms with living with the disease and bring new understandings for the wider community too.
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