Tag Archives: Parkinson’s

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Kazoos are good for youse

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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

 

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I got rhythm, I got music…

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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

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Old drugs in new bottles

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An interesting development, or in this case, two interesting developments, is the finding that currently available medications might be repurposed for their neuroprotective effects. Here are two articles on two drugs that show promise.

This is a report on a hypertension medication that provides neuroprotection in mice and may be transferable to humans… Are mice brains similar enough to humans for it to work? A recent report on isradipine, another hypertension medication, reported no differences in symptoms between controls and those receiving the medications. We shall see.

Felodipine induces autophagy in mouse brains with pharmacokinetics amenable to repurposing

Nrct we have a case in which a tricyclic antidepressant, nortriptyline, has been found to slow down the aggregation of alpha synuclein proteins in the brain.

Nortriptyline inhibits aggregation and neurotoxicity of alpha-synuclein

 Not sure whether either will pan out, but anyone with either hypertension or depression could discuss these articles with their doctor(s) and come to a mutually agreeable course of action.

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Put on your dancing shoes

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Two links to Internet URLs reporting on recent research.

Comparing Dancing and Fitness

Dancing can reverse the signs of aging

The first link is the actual research article. The second link is an article reporting on the first one.

The results of the research article are not quite as effusive as the non-technical news article. Which is to be expected from a scientific article – don’t claim more than the data actually supports. The “popular ” press isn’t constrained by the same principles.

Bottom line – dance movement therapy is good for you. In my area, dance classes are free of charge and accommodate all levels of mobility, including wheelchair bound folks.

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A couple of abstracts on sleep and restless legs

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Sleep quality as prodromal PD symptom

Although the above link only leads to an abstract, there is enough information to accept their conclusion that “in the general population, deterioration of sleep quality and duration are markers of the prodromal phase of parkinsonism, including Parkinson’s disease.”

Restless Legs Syndrome and whether or not it is improved by DBS is apparently not a matter of consensus RLS improved by DBS although, again, this is not a full text article.

 

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Searching for the secret chord…

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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.

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Dance and exercise – a study and a publications review

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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.

 

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Almost let these references get away

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Some recent articles about music and dance – thought I had already published this – it appears not. Either that, or I’m more cognitively impaired than I thought I was. If this keeps up, I’ll have normal intelligence:

Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins 

Acronym is DOSE, and it’s a short article talking about how dance is good for you because it releases several different hormones and neurotransmitters – and not just because it makes you feel good – but because it does….😎

Language of music and psychophysical foundations  

from the abstract: “Application of music in rehabilitation medicine requires an understanding of the mechanisms of music perception. This article discusses differences in character of the basic melodic elements and addresses some of the specifics of tonal space. Colloquially, music is called the language of emotion. Bearing in mind that high-level cognitive functioning in humans is inseparable from affective consciousness, investigating the mechanisms of emotional processing belongs to an important area of cognitive sciences. Studying music perception can help to advance methods of music therapy and to elucidate major aspects of human consciousness.” (emphasis added)(Article is on ReseaechGate; membership(.

Drumming program to improve social interactions

Although the article is about subjects with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), I think that the results are likely to be replicable with or generalizable to Parkinson’s Disease folks.

” results suggest that the children with ASD significantly improved in the domains of enjoyment and fun, and showed a positive trend for developing improved social relationships with peers and camp counselor partners.”

 

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

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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.

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Teamwork helps

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An open access article:

Multi-disciplinary approach for rehab to improve QOL

From the abstract:

Results:Patients reported higher functional status (d=0.37,p<0.001), general self-efficacy(d=0.28,p<0.01), and quality of life (d=0.32,p<0.001) at three weeks follow-up, comparedto their baseline scores. The regression analysis showed that having a better initial functionalstatus (β=−0.26,p<0.05) and lower quality of life (β=0.51,p<0.001) were associated withmore improvements in quality of life.
Conclusion:The study suggests that actual functioning in persons with Parkinson’s diseaseis a better predictor of improved quality of life than self-efficacy beliefs and that those whohave lower levels of initial quality of life benefit more from rehabilitation.

The program was only three weeks long, but was inpatient and apparently intensive:

The multidisciplinary rehabilitation program had a duration of three weeks and was an inpatient program. Upon arrival, participants were awarded a primary contact to ensure a unified team working toward goals set by the participant him/herself. The multidisciplinary team consisted of 10 different professions, such as occupational therapists, physical therapists, doctors, neurologists, nurses, sports educators, cognitive behavioral therapists, and nutritionists. Commencing the multidisciplinary rehabilitation program, participants were assessed by the relevant professional/s and typically had close follow-up the first week with individual and group-based exercise