Author Archives: RobertKamper

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Return of Return To The Natives

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Well, folks, this site was left behind a few years ago, but from my overall WordPress traffic reports, it seems to be visited from time to time. Thus it seems that it might not be a bad idea to start updating it. Could be wrong of course, but here goes nothing: One of my favorite Texas native wildflowers, the Prairie Celestial.

Nemastylis geminiflora - Prairie Celestial

Nemastylis geminiflora – Prairie Celestial

These members of the Iris family bloom for approximately two weeks, beginning with somewhere near the Spring equinox, and ending around April 1st. This year, there was an early “scouting” expedition around the 13th-15th of March, then a gap, followed by the expected blooming around the 19th of March through April 1st, which appeared to have been the last of it. Then, around the 5th through the 10th of April, I discovered some more blooms, stragglers, as it were.

Each flower blooms for just one day, and they often appear in pairs, hence the species name geminiflora. Each plant, which is a deep seated bulb (and hard to dig up, even for scientific sampling), may have several flowers. Another common name is Pleat Leaf Lily, derived from the “pleats” in the leaves, as shown below.

You might also note the bur clover or yellow clover, an invasive weed that forms a carpet and crowds out native plants, especially when mowing is frequent and close to the ground, and mowers move between locations without pressure washing plant materials off the blades of their mowers.

Nemastylis geminiflora - Pleat Leaf Lily

Nemastylis geminiflora – Pleat Leaf Lily

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Don’t stop moving to the music

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Neither of these articles addesses Parkinson’s Disease, buut what the heck, I’ll report on them anyway.

music therapy in the schools

Basically, the abstract says that music therapists in the schools do a lot of good for a lot of kids.

and another abstract, this one about dance:

Effect of dance therapies on motor-cognitive dual-task performance in middle-aged and older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Purpose: To systematically review the effectiveness of dance-based programs to improve motor-cognitive dual-task performance in middle-aged and older adults.

Materials and methods: Five scientific databases were selected … Ninety-one articles were found in the electronic databases. Fourteen articles fulfilled all inclusion and exclusion criteria…

Results: All the studies had an acceptable methodological quality. Dance-based interventions had a duration of 8–52 weeks, 1–3 sessions per week, with sessions lasting 40–90 min. According to the overall effect size, dance-based interventions significantly improved dual-task performance (−0.48 with a 95% confidence interval from −0.88 to −0.08).

Conclusions: Dance-based intervention programs may be effective at improving the performance on motor-cognitive dual-task in middle-aged and older adults. Apart from the effects on the cognitive Time Up and Go test, dance interventions may also improve speed walking with a cognitive task. All these conclusions must be taken with caution due to the heterogeneity and the small number of articles. Future research can be developed to increase the knowledge on these issues.

Alvaro Murillo-Garcia, Santos Villafaina, Daniel Collado-Mateo, Juan Luis Leon-Llamas & Narcis Gusi (2020) Effect of dance therapies on motor-cognitive dual-task performance in middle-aged and older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Disability and Rehabilitation, DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2020.1735537

Music, Research , , , Leave a comment

Say what?

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Not specifically related to Parkinson’s, this study looked into whether providing musical training to older non-musicians would have an effect on the experimental task.

Experienced musicians outperform non-musicians in understanding speech-in-noise (SPIN). The benefits of lifelong musicianship endure into older age, where musicians experience smaller declines in their ability to understand speech in noisy environments…  results suggest that short-term musical training in older adults may enhance neural encoding of speech, with the potential to reduce age-related decline in speech perception. [emphasis added]

The effects of short-term musical training on the neural processing of speech-in-noise in older adults

… these findings suggest that music training enhances neural responses to speech in speech-motor and control regions.The absence of training-related interactions with noise level suggests that the benefit of music training is related to processing speech in general, and not separating it from background noise;

– BUT analysis of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging showed electrical activities in a couple of areas of the brain related to speech perception for those who were in the musical training group.

Obviously, “further research is needed,” as the saying goes, and perhaps for longer periods of time.

Whatever type of musical training one chooses, singing, keyboard, string, or wind instruments, there’s another saying that applies to that as well: “It may not help, but it can’t hurt.”

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Research, Reviews, Sleep Leave a comment

Just the facts, ma’am

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As Sergeant Friday used to say on Dragnet: Just the facts.

Well, here they are.

Narcolepsy-Fact-Sheet

Which answers all those questions that keep you up at night:

What is narcolepsy?
Who gets narcolepsy?
What are the symptoms?
What are the types of narcolepsy?
What causes narcolepsy?
How is narcolepsy diagnosed?
What treatments are available?
What behavioral strategies help people cope with symptoms?
What is the state of the science involving narcolepsy?
What research is being done?
How can I help research?
Where can I get more information?

Then again, a little background information doesn’t hurt, and reading a historical review just might be what you need to put you to sleep:

Historical review of narcolepsy

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To sleep, perchance to dream… or to stay up all night, that is the question

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Other than the sound of Shakespeare rolling in his grave at that title, what else might be involved in insomnia? (disregarding the occasional benefits such as hearing Isaac Hayes’ version of “By The Time I Get To Phoenix” on a radio show titled “For Mushrooms and Night People,” or reading through James Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake” in one sleepless night).

Insomnia related to PD – according to this study abstract, the authors found that insomnia disorder co-morbid with Parkinson’s Disease was consistent with that of folks without PD, and they recommend a cognitive behavioral therapy approach to help treat people with this problem.

Insomnia co-morbid with Parkinson’s Disease

On the other hand, insomnia can lead to daytime drowsiness. And that, as this author can attest, can be co-morbid with REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RSBD) or as narcolepsy for many years without a diagnosis.

Here are a couple of other articles on longitudinal studies related to PD and sleep issues. They are open access, so one can read and draw one’s own conclusions. As usual, one of the conclusions one might reach is that further research is needed on the topic.

Long term effects of STN DBS on sleep     In this study, it was found that DBS improved nocturnal sleep quality but had no effect on excessive daytime sleepiness.

10 year study on daytime drowsiness and PD   In this long term study, it was found that daytime drowsiness did not improve, even while other symptoms of PD progressively got worse.

The author refers you to the paragraph above in which RSBD was co-morbid and precedent to PD diagnosis, as well as narcolepsy, which was only diagnosed in recent years. Although symptoms may be associated with Parkinson’s, they might not be a part of the Parkinson’s Disease, and other causes must be ruled out in order to arrive at accurate diagnoses. For this, a team of medical personnel is required, and not specialists, each working alone in their own silo. (Opinions provided free of charge).

 

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Music on the brain

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Why do we like some kinds of music but not others?

Back in college, Jerry Coker (who taught jazz improvisation, said that we tended to like music that was not entirely predictable, but that a certain level of surprise increased our enjoyment of jazz. Music that was too unpredictable led to diminished enjoyment. Now, a study has been done that mathematically analyzed people’s enjoyment of musical snippets, and basically confirmed what Jerry taught us. Surprise us every now and then, but don’t make us feel like we’re stupid and can’t guess the next note that’s coming along.

Here’s the article with a reference and link to the original research (if you can afford it): The brain’s favorite type of music

Dopamine’s role in music enjoyment.

In this study, researchers looked at people’s responses to music under three separate conditions. One group received levodopa, another received risperidone, a dopamine antagonist, and a third group received a placebo. Folks in the levodopa group reported and were recorded as having higher levels of enjoyment, and those taking the antagonist, lower levels of enjoyment. Each group[ went through all the conditions, separated by a week in between sessions. The results clearly indicate that dopamine is the brain is related to musical pleasure. Now, if  playing and singing music promote an increase of dopamine in the brain, we have a prescription for Parkinson’s Disease (and depression) that can’t be beat (although it can be counted off).

Dopamine role in musical pleasure    

the actual research article which appears to be available in its entirety online: Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music

 

 

 

Dance, Dance for Parkinson's, Music, Parkinson's, Research , , , , Leave a comment

Oh, I’m walking to New Orleans… or maybe the Outback

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Here’s a conference poster reporting some recent research on music and gait… and the effects of dual tasks on Parkinson’s Disease diagnosed people. It seems that all the researchers are in Australia, hence the title to this post.

Walkin’ and Talkin’: dual task effects on Gait

They had a few different tasks – just walking, walking while saying all the words one could think of starting with the letter (name a letter), and walking while counting in intervals. The conclusion was that Dance For Parkinson’s® had a positive effect. Naturally, they called for more research with larger numbers of participants.

In the meantime, as I always say: Don’t stop moving to the music!

 

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I would definitely volunteer…

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For a longitudinal followup study. The longer the better. This is the sort of study you can sink your teeth into…

Food for thought, indeed.

Dark chocolate consumption versus depressive symptoms

Well, the results aren’t conclusive, but apparently the theory is that dark chocolate contains Flavonoids and possibly activates the endocannabinoid receptors in the brain, which make folks feel good instead of angry and hostile or depressed.

And chocolate is still legal in all 50 states of the USA.

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Music, Parkinson's, Research , Leave a comment

We’ve got the beat… or maybe not

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Research into rhythmic deficits in Parkinson’s:

Previous research has demonstrated that people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have difficulties with the perceptual discrimination of rhythms, relative to healthy controls…. insight into how people with PD process and perceive rhythm can refine our understanding of the well known problems of temporal processing in the disease

Subjective judgments of rhythmic complexity in Parkinson’s disease

In this study, conducted over the internet,

People with PD rated all rhythms as more complex across tempi, with significant group differences in complexity ratings at 120 and 150bpm, but not at 90bpm. Our analysis found a uniform elevated baseline for complexity judgments in the PD-group, and a strong association between the two groups’ rank-ordering the rhythms for complexity. This indicates a preserved ability to discriminate between relative levels of complexity. …we speculate that Parkinson’s disease affects judgment of complexity but not judgment of likeability.

So if I understand this correctly, folks with PD find rhythms, especially faster rhythms, to be more complex than do “normal” people.

As for me, I will still prefer syncopated rhythms, especially calypso, maybe because I heard them when I was too young to remember. Military marches in 2/4 time no longer appeal to me. In fact, I believe that the march that I wrote in high school during band camp, “To The Rear March, ” had a syncopated melody, but I can’t swear to it. Guess I’ll have to dig up the old sheet music and take a look.

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