Kazoos are good for youse

All of the following links have to do with improving voice for PD folks, and also the use of kazoos.

I used to write for this student newspaper:

Music therapy helps tackle Parkinson’s (The Miami Hurricane July 5, 2019)

This is a fairly long honors project paper reviewing voice therapy techniques:

Voice Therapy Techniques in Combination with the Group Therapy Setting for Individuals withParkinson’s Disease

Not necessarily for PD, but the study used spectrographic analysis to measure the improvement in voice in addition to qualitative results.

Finger Kazoo: spectrographic acoustic modifications and vocal self-assessment

I might have already mentioned this in a previous entry, but kazoos were used:

Individual Therapeutic Singing Program for Vocal Quality and Depression in Parkinson’s Disease

Vocal warmups for the individual: Vocal warmups

Vocal warmups for the group: Anatomy of a choral warmup

 

I got rhythm, I got music…

Put together a slide presentation trying to synthesize some of the research on Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and the possibility of music, singing, playing musical instruments, and dance as means to counteract the progressive effects of dopaminergic neurons lost in the course of PD. Due to the length of the presentation and the limits of my computer resources, the narration seems to have gotten a little out of sync towards the end. But it is what it is, as they say: (note: added a PDF file of the presentation on 6-9-19 to make it easier to download and view)

Rhythm, Music, Singing, Dancing and the Brain

2019-06-05-Rhythm Music Singing and the brain  (PDF file)

and an even smaller file with all the blue and yellow intact (6-15-2019):

Rhythm Music Singing Dancing and the Brain

You are what you eat…

But before we get into the articles about the gut microbiome, from 2015, a review of the various signs that predate full motor symptoms

non-motor and pre-motor symptoms of PD

Recent studies provide new insights on the frequency, pathophysiology, and importance of non-motor features in Parkinson’s disease as well as the recognition that these non-motor symptoms occur in premotor, early, and later phases of Parkinson’s disease.

This study (2017) looks at the progression of PD and problems with the bacteria in the stomach:
Progression of PD and gut dysbiosis
from the conclusions:

The total counts of intestinal bacterial decrease in the course of PD progression. Temporal profiles of lowering of bacterial counts are likely to be different from bacteria to bacteria, and also between the deteriorating and stable groups, which may be able to be exploited to differentiate patients with rapidly and slowly progressive PD pathology.

The search for biomarkers for PD goes for the gut (2018):
Gut Microbiota Dysfunction as Reliable Non-invasive Early Diagnostic Biomarkers in the Pathophysiology of Parkinson’s Disease: A Critical Review

future directions should therefore, focus on the exploration of newer investigational techniques to identify these reliable early biomarkers and define the specific gut microbes that contribute to the development of Parkinson’s disease. This ultimately should pave the way to safer and novel therapeutic approaches that avoid the complications of the drugs delivered today to the brain of Parkinson’s disease patients.

Another article on the role of gut bacteria in PD (2018): Parkinson’s disease and bacteriophages as its overlooked contributors

Our findings add bacteriophages to the list of possible factors associated with the development of PD, suggesting that gut phagobiota composition may serve as a diagnostic tool as well as a target for therapeutic intervention, which should be confirmed in further studies. Our results open a discussion on the role of environmental phages and phagobiota composition in health and disease.

A review of the relationship between the gut microbiome and PD (2018):
Microbes Tickling Your Tummy: the Importance of the Gut-Brain Axis in Parkinson’s Disease

Looking back a few years, one can hope that diet might be a way to affect the course of PD, if diet can change the gut microbiome (2014) :Diet rapidly and reproducibly alters the human gut microbiome

Long-term diet influences the structure and activity of the trillions of microorganisms residing in the human gut1–5, but it remains unclear how rapidly and reproducibly the human gut microbiome responds to short-term macronutrient change. Here, we show that the short-term consumption of diets composed entirely of animal or plant products alters microbial community structure and overwhelms inter-individual differences in microbial gene expression.

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Searching for the secret chord…

These came out of a search, so might have been previously covered in a post:

This review covers music performed in groups and is not directly related to Parkinson’s: Collaboration and improvisation

Music performance is inherently social. Most music is performed in groups, and even soloists are subject to influence from a (real or imagined) audience. It is also inherently creative. Performers are called upon to interpret notated music, improvise new musical material, adapt to unexpected playing conditions, and accommodate technical errors. The focus of this paper is how creativity is distributed across members of a music ensemble as they perform these tasks

This article does cover Parkinson’s – singing as a way to help with vocal issues and depression. Positive results, but not a randomized control type experiment, so conclusions are tentative:

Individualized singing program

Here’s an interesting experiment in which participants are asked to improvise music which reflects varied feeling states. Not sure how the results can be applied, except that creating music or dance/movement to express emotions is probably of benefit to the brains of people with Parkinson’s, regardless of the strength of the research.
Effects of music making

This study has gotten some wide distribution – on how musicians (people who play an instrument) react more quickly than people who do not. This article digest is from Science Daily (January 2017)

Play an instrument?

“fine” as they say on the sheet music.

Dance and exercise – a study and a publications review

Not much new here – more evidence that dance exercises and physical exercise in general, is beneficial for people with PD.

Shall We Dance – master’s thesis  by Brittni Lynn McAlister, University of North Colorado

 In the words of one participant, the dance classes have been “. . . completely life-changing.”

Systematic review of exercises for Parkinson’s

This review revealed that people with Parkinson’s disease viewed physical activity as an enjoyable and positive experience, which aided with control of their symptoms and enhanced their wellbeing and quality of life.

 

Dance/movement, quality of life, and social skills, oh my!

First, an abstract:

Use of Dance/Movement therapy for autism spectrum

“… future research must demonstrate greater scientific rigor in documenting the efficacy of DMT treatment interventions. It also found that imitation (mirroring) interventions helped individuals with ASD improve their social skills.” (Bold added) (This article was one of those reviews of published articles. The abstract does include a list of references, many of which are available online).

Next, an open access article on multidisciplinary approach:
(This sounds like another article recently posted. Would investigate, but having Parkinson’s means there’s never enough time to do everything you want to do).

Enhanced Quality of Life

Objectives: To compare the effects of inpatient enhanced multidisciplinary care (EMC) and multidisciplinary rehabilitation (MR)
on the symptoms and quality of life (QOL) of patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and to clarify the relation between reduction in
symptoms and the improved QOL. Methods: This study was a quasi-randomized controlled (alternate allocation), assessor blinded, single-center study. We recruited 80 patients with idiopathic Parkinson disease, Hoehn and Yahr stage 2 to 4, on stable
medication. Patients were included in an EMC or MR group. Both rehabilitation programs were performed for 8 weeks (17 h/wk).
Main outcome measures were Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire-39 and Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale. Results: The
EMC induced significant improvements in QOL compared to MR. We found that body axis symptoms (rising from a chair,
posture, postural stability, falling, and walking) as well as nonmotor symptoms (depression) in patients with PD were relieved by
the inpatient EMC. Conclusions: Enhanced multidisciplinary care for patients with PD appears to be effective in improving the
QOL. The improvement in motor and nonmotor symptoms, including depression, may contribute to the improved QOL.

Finally, another open access article that might be of interest to those using technology: analysis of respiration to evaluate movement.

The role of respiration audio in multimodal analysis of movement qualities

A little out in left field, but who knows?

That’s all for today, folks. Read and ponder.

Music on the brain

Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS) and Argentinean Tango

Results: Results showed significant improvements in the Tinetti scale total (mean±SD of post-pre change: 5.3±2.8, p<0.01), gait (2.5±1.2 p<0.01), and balance scores (2.8±2.0 p<0.01). TUG also improved by 3.6±0.8 seg (p<0.01). Statistically non-significant changes were recorded in mobility, bodily discomfort, stigma, social support and cognition PDQ-39 domains, with Cohen’s d sizes of 0.5-0.6 and NNTs of 5-7.

Conclusion: RAS could be combined with Argentinean Tango. Positive effects on gait and balance were observed, together with a trend towards improvement in some quality of life domains. A randomized, blinded, controlled trial in a larger number of patients followed-up during a longer period is underway.

And this:Brief review of music and cognition

Given that the participants were not musicians, it can be inferred that the results of the research can be applied in other non-musical contexts, what we call “generalization” in cognitive rehabilitation, which means, non-musical gains can be transferred to daily activities. In this perspective Billhiartz et. al. (2000) argue that there is a link between musical instruction and development in non-musical skills.

… we agree that music is an important element in human life that can be used in many contexts. The musical activity is multisensorial, simultaneously integrating several systems, mainly the sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective, within a specific context, which consecrates in the sphere of embodied musical cognition.

An interview with Tom Moore

This is just a darn interesting interview with a musician and musicologist. You can’t make this stuff up.

 

Exergame based therapy and other stuff

Rehab through exer-games

Conclusion:Recent evidence indicates exergame-based therapy has been widely proven to be feasible, safe, and atleast as effective as traditional PD rehabilitation. Further insight into new sensors, best practices and different cognitivestadiums of PD (such as PD with Mild Cognitive Impairment), as well as task specificity, are required. Also, studieslinking game parameters and results with traditional assessment methods, such as UPDRS scores, are required.

Study protocol re: PD movement interventions

The goal of this study is to begin to address this
challenge by piloting a novel, hypothesis-driven, non-
pharmacological intervention to improve motor function
and diminish motor fatigue in PD. This novel approach is
based on the use of hypothesis-driven cognitive task inter-
ventions to stimulate the motor system and ameliorate
motor symptoms

Palmomental reflex is an important clinical marker of REM sleep behavior disorder in patients with Parkinson’s disease Yadav R, Mahale R, Pal PK – Ann Mov Disord

 

Review of exercise and PD, and creativity and PD

Today’s feed brings me the following two articles, one of which points out that exercise is not a “one size fits all” approach to controlling PD symptoms, and the other which is more exploratory in nature and thought-provoking.

Exercise and PD – review article 

In this review article, the authors

” briefly review the state of the art in key areas and speculate on the likely state of research in each area in the next 20 years. Key areas relate to: (1) the physiological benefits of exercise with respect to disease modification; (2) the best type of exercise; (3) the optimal intensity of exercise; and (4) implementation strategies for increasing exercise/physical activity uptake.”

“Does exercise have significant promise to mitigate the burden and possibly the course of PD? We think so. But to answer that question we will need to design trials that account for the multisystem nature of PD, identify the specific effects of exercise and target the underlying pathophysiology/mechanisms. A better understanding of this would allow for a more personalized approach rather than the current ‘one size fits all’ and could most likely confer greater benefits.”

Art for Better Health and Wellbeing

A provocative article that discusses the relationships among, Dopamine, creativity, and Parkinson’s Disease:

“Dopamine’s role in creativity seems causal: when patients with
Parkinson’s receive dopaminergic medicine to improve their
mobility the treatment also stimulates curiosity, motivation, and
even creativity in as many as 10% of patients.

Some develop beautiful art, even if their creative intelligence had never
expressed itself before. Other patients change their existing
artistic expressions under dopaminergic stimulation, sometimes
strikingly.

Perhaps even more provocative is the recent finding that healthy
people who had chosen an artistic profession early in life had
a reduced risk of developing Parkinson’s disease.”

 

Management of sleep disturbances in PD – review and consensus recommendations

Just in: a review of sleep disturbances and treatments for PD patients.

I’ve been having trouble getting a full night’s sleep the last few days. Could be due to any number of reasons.

Early this morning, received this review on sleep disturbances in patients with PD, It covers Insomnia, Restless legs, REM Sleep Disorder and obstructive sleep apnea types of sleep disturbances, Could be useful to print out and share with your physician to make sure you are on the most effective regimen: Note the 4 tables that accompany the article.

http://www.cmj.org/article.asp?issn=0366-6999;year=2018;volume=131;issue=24;spage=2976;epage=2985;aulast=Liu