Tag Archives: Parkinson’s

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Biomarkers,cardio training, singing and dancing, and how jokes work.

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This is a long post. Most of the links are to free, full text articles or reports.

Recent advances in Biomarkers for Parkinson’s A review of the advances currently being made in the search for a cure.

INTERVAL TRAINING FOR CARDIOMETABOLIC AND BRAIN HEALTH

 

1. Engaging in interval exercise can boost fitness and improve your mood in a time-efficient manner.

2. Short exercise breaks like climbing the stairs can refocus attention and help maintain productivity in the workplace.

3. Combining interval exercises with motor skill training in a clinical setting can augment the recovery of function.

Dance and Health Training research report   

The aim of this research was to create a best practice model of dance and health continuing professional development (CPD); to create a dynamic, interdisciplinary course of study for dancers who are engaged in facilitating dance across a range of dance genres within health care contexts.

Outcomes of the project:  Full listing of international and national examples of best practice, core literature, key expert practitioners, full course content and delivery requirements are set out in this report.

(Note: specifically related to Ireland).

Sing while you work

This pilot study is the first Irish study of the health and wellbeing benefits of HSE workplace choirs. It is one of few studies to investigate the health and
wellbeing benefits of choir for Health Service Staff internationally.  Qualitative data confirms previous study findings; namely that a workplace choir can promote social connectedness, enjoyment at work, and staff
engagement; reduce stress; and improve perception of health and wellbeing.
Benefits of attending are noticed across workplace communications.

Comparison of two different exercise programs  (abstract only)

After treatment, UPDRS-II scores improved (mean change: EXE, -4.5 points; CYC, -3.2 points). The results for the other outcomes (EXE and CYC, respectively) were: PDQ, 13 and 17%; BDI, -2.5 and -2.1 points; 6MWT, 129.6 and 141.6 m; and EQ-5D, 12 and 9% (all p < 0.05, but there was no difference between groups). EXE vs. CYC resulted in improved SE-ADL (8.4 and 4.0 points, effect size [ES]: 0.12), BBS (8.8 and 4.2 points, ES: 0.44), and 2 measures of posturography (ES: 0.11 and 0.21) (p 0.05).

CONCLUSION:
Two highly different exercise programs resulted in similar improvement of most motor and clinical symptoms in PD patients.

One thing Parkinson’s People do to help cope with  an incurable (so far), progressive, degenerative, neurological disease is to use humor.

The following showed up in the Dance+Parkinson’s search feed, and are included here with a caveat that some of the jokes used to illustrate the ways in which humor works (theoretically) can be be considered offensive.

How do jokes work?

Back before the Internet, there was a Humor list-serve, dedicated to the study of humor and how it works.  The above PDF attempts to address the varieties of jokes, and repeats some potentially offensive ones to illustrate its concepts. Much of the text refers to the following free e-book on the Gutenberg project.

Laughter: an essay on the meaning of humor   by Henri Bergson

 

 

 

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Music, Rhythm, etc.

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therapeutic effects of singing on neurological diseases Don’t know if I’ve sent this out before. A review of benefits of singing on PD and other conditions.

“Walking to New Orleans” or rhythmic auditory cues improve gait

Results

Gait variability decreased and prefrontal HbO2 levels increased during cued walking relative to usual

walking. Older adults showed greater HbO2 levels in multiple motor regions during cued walking although the response reduced with repeated exposure. In older adults, lower depression scores, higher cognitive functioning and reduced gait variability were linked with increased HbO2 levels during RAC walking.

Conclusion

These findings suggest that walking improves with RAC in older adults and is achieved through increased activity in multiple cortical areas. The cortical response decline with repeated exposure indicates older adults’ ability to adapt to a new task

 

THE BEAT GOES ON AUDITORY CUES FOR PEOPLE WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE A Powerpoint presentation that covers everything you might want to know about PD and auditory cues. Basically, folks did as well or better with music than a metronome beat, and enjoyed walking to music better. significant results reported and apparently both CMTs and PTs were in agreement.
 
Not Cure but heal: Music and Medicine  a chapter in a book, but the references are listed, and some of them are available free on PubMed Central

Internal cues better than external in improving gait

Results indicate that internal cueing was associated with improvements in gait velocity, cadence, and stride length in the backward direction, and reduced variability in both forward and backward walking. In comparison, external cueing was
associated with minimal improvement in gait characteristics and a decline in gait stability. People with gait impairment due to aging or neurological decline may benefit more from internal cueing techniques such as singing as compared to external cueing techniques.
Meter and learning (open access article) Both dance and music performers must learn timing patterns (temporal learning, or ‘when‘) along with series of different movements (ordinal learning, or ‘what‘). It has been suggested that the organization of temporal events into regular beat cycles (meter strength) may enhance both temporal and ordinal learning, but empirical evidence is mixed and incomplete. In the present study, we examined meter-strength effects on the concurrent temporal and ordinal learning of sequences. Meter strength enhanced ordinal learning (‘what’) when the concurrent temporal learning was incidental, but it had no effects on temporal learning itself (‘when’). Our findings provide guidelines for dance and music teaching as well as rhythm-based neurological rehabilitation.
 
just catching up on my inbox.
I got rhythm, I got music, and if I quote more than that UMG’s lawyers will probably sue me, too.
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Music Training and PD

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A Rationale for Muusic Training To Enhance Executive Function in Parkinson’s Disease: An Overview of the Problem

From the abstract:: “Deficits in executive functions (e.g., attention, processing speed) in patients with PD result in gait interference, deficits in emotional processing, loss of functional capacity (e.g., intellectual activity, social participation), and reduced quality of life. ” (for people with Parkinson’s Disease.

The authors note that music listening interventions can help with gait and freezing, but that the effecct of actual musical training on executive functions mentioned above is unknown.

“In piano training, fine motor finger movements activate the cerebellum and supplementary motor areas (SMA) , thereby exercising the CTC network. We hypothesize that exercising the CTC network through music training will contribute to enhanced executive functions. Previous research suggested that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy adults and adults with cognitive impairments. ”

” Previous research suggested that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy adults and adults with cognitive impairments. This review and rationale provides support for the use of music training to enhance cognitive outcomes in patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD).”

The evidence revewed in the article “presents a compelling case for music training to improve executive functioning for adults with PD.

“First, music training activates the cerebellar-thalamocortical network (CTC) network providing a rerouting to activate executive functions through fine motor activity .”

The authors “hypothesize that exercising the CTC network through music training will contribute to enhanced cognitive performance.

The Movement Disorder Society (MDS) values the identification and intervention of cognitive impairment in adults with PD, and sees it as part of essential care—a need yet to be met.”

“Cognitive interventions that include repeated practice exercising the CTC network through sensorimotor integration may assist patients with PD. While research has shown that music training enhances cognitive performance (i.e., working memory and processing speed) in healthy older adults, there is a need to extend the benefits of music training to patients with PD.”

Please excuse me, time for my keyboard practice.
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Some references on Dance + Parkinson’s Disease + Singing + Music … for reading and assimilation

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The overall arc of research on music is that it does more than soothe the savagw breast [ it mrnds the mind, provides rhythmic cues and aids in movement and balance, and singing helps with breathing and volume. Here are just three references – the third has to do with autism spectrum disorder, but what the heck, worth a read, and perhaps one can extrapolate to PD, if not generalize…

Evaluating Dancing With Parkinson’s: Reflections from the perspective of a community organization 

The neurochemistry of music

Effects of Dance Therapy

 

 

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December in July

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The title refers to the fact that this post was drafted back in December 2016 as an email InfoShare for the Capitol Area Parkinson’s Support (CAPS) group, which is meeting today (July 15 2017) at 2 PM. Never did send it out. So here it is, a few months late, but the news is still timely. Especially the value of early treatment and diagnosis of PD.  So, here it is:
The London School of Economics and Political Science recently released a report on the “Value of Early Diagnosis and Treatment in Parkinson’s Disease”, a literature review of recent studies with recommendations for action. It can be downloaded at http://www.braincouncil.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Parkinson-report-2016-1.pdf 
On a broader view of PD,  here’s a link to a page that has links to just about everything Parkinson’s – The National Institutes of Health (NIH) U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) Medline Plus topic page on Parkinson’s Disease.

Parkinson’s Disease: MedlinePlus

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a movement disorder. It causes tremors, stiffness, and slow movement. It gets wo…
OK – you can spend a week going through all of that information. 
So here are the items mentioned in the subject headline:
First, evidence that DBS is helpful in early stages of PDS, not just in later stages. Benefits extend for at least 5 years.

Motor Skill Improvement With DBS Seen in Early Parkinson’s

The treatment, linked to benefits in advanced disease, shows signs of significant improvement in early-stage dis…
The PDF copy of the research paper referenced in the above news article can be found at this link:
A less drastic approach than brain surgery might be helpful for motor symptoms:

TMS May Ease Bradykinesia, Rigidity in Parkinson’s

New research helps pinpoint which motor symptoms of PD respond to transcranial magnetic stimulation.
Next, contradictory evidence regarding whether statins used to lower cholesterol levels offer a protective effect for PD – previous analyses said yes, but further massage of the data reveals that the answer is not as simple as it seemed at first.

Statin Use Linked to Increased Parkinson’s Risk

Contrary to previous research, a new study shows a higher, rather than lower, risk for Parkinson’s disease a…
Here are links to related articles, papers, and abstracts:

Statins Protective Against Parkinson’s: More Evidence

Further evidence that statin use is associated with a reduction in risk of Parkinson’s disease has come from…
Earlier this year, an analysis of ten reports that yielded different conclusions after adjusting for cholesterol levels.

Confounding of the association between statins and Parkinson disease: syste…
In 2012, the JAMA Neurology journal published a prospective analysis that indicated statins reduced the risk of PD. (PDF of full article is available for free download):
Several years ago, an analysis found publication bias in favor of positive results, and both a protective effect for statin use and no protective effect for long term statin use:

Statin use and risk of Parkinson’s disease: a meta-analysis of observationa…

Inconsistent results regarding the association between statin use and risk of Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been…
And last year, an analysis of published reports that found that use of statins was not protective for PD, in contrast to the hypothesis that statins are protective.

Statins, plasma cholesterol, and risk of Parkinson’s disease: A prospec…
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Nordic Walking & PD – no decision yet.

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Systematic review of studies involving Nordic Walking and Parkinson’s was conducted. Due to differences in study designs, can’t really say whether NW should be included in exercise treatments for folks with PD.

Nordic Walking for the management of people with Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review

Lucia Cugusi, PhD et al.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pmrj.2017.06.021

Abstract

Background

It is well known that physical exercise is the main therapeutic element of rehabilitation programs for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD). As traditional forms of exercise can guarantee significant health benefits, the emergence of non-conventional physical activities, such as Nordic walking (NW), may add positive effects.

Objective

To appraise the available evidence on the main effects of NW in the rehabilitation programs for people with PD and to propose a design for upcoming research that might improve the uniformity of future trials.

Study Design

Systematic review

Literature Survey.

A literature search of five established databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane) was conducted.

Method

ology. Any relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) pertinent to NW in PD published in English from inception to February 2017, were included. PRISMA guidelines were followed and the methodological quality of each study was assessed by the PEDro scale.

Data Synthesis

Sixty-six studies were retrieved and 6 RCTs (221 subjects) entered the qualitative synthesis. Overall, these studies portrayed NW as feasible and likely to be effective in improving the functional and clinical outcomes of people with PD. When comparing NW with other exercise-based interventions such as treadmill training, free walking, a program of standardized whole-body movements with maximal amplitude (LSVT®BIG training) or a home-based exercise program, the findings proved controversial.

Conclusions

High heterogeneity and methodological discrepancies among the studies prevent from drawing firm conclusions on the effectiveness of NW in comparison with other exercise-based interventions currently employed in people with PD. Further investigations with a common design are necessary to verify whether NW may be included within conventional rehabilitation programs commonly recommended to people with PD.

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Autoimmune response may play a role in Parkinson’s

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Original of this story at: Medical News Today web site 21 June 2017

The exact causes of Parkinson’s disease are unknown, but an important hallmark is the buildup of damaged alpha-synuclein protein in dopamine-producing cells.

The new study reveals evidence that two fragments of alpha-synuclein can trigger T cells to initiate an attack by the immune system.

The researchers tested blood samples from 67 patients with Parkinson’s disease and control samples from 36 healthy patients.

They exposed the blood samples to fragments of proteins found in brain cells, including fragments of alpha-synuclein. The blood from the controls hardly reacted, but T cells in the blood from the Parkinson’s patients had a strong reaction to defined fragments from alpha-synuclein

The finding suggests that certain variants of MHC – such as those associated with Parkinson’s disease – may cause T cells to mistakenly identify the alpha-synuclein fragments as pathogens and thus trigger an autoimmune response that destroys the offending cells.

A lot of work still needs to be done,, but it could help to provide a diagnostic test for risk or early stages of PD, which is sorely needed.

I wonder – Could you get allergy shots with alpha synuclein protein fragments to reduce or eliminate the autoimmune response and thus keep T-Cells from attacking the dopaminergic neurons?

 

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Visual tests, distorted pictures of cats and dogs, dementia and Parkinson’s…

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Medscape reports on new research results from the International Conference on Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, held in Vancouver, BC, Canada June 4 – 8 2017.

Pictures of Cats and Dogs suggest identification of high risk for Parkinson’s dementia.

When viewing pictures of cats and dogs with no distortion, medium distortion, and strong distortion, Parkinson’s Patients did worse than controls in distinguishing between cats and dogs in the medium distortion condition, pointing to possible improved tests and treatments to prevent dementia in Parkinson’s.

Autopsy studies of patients with PD confirm that this area of the brain — the infero-temporal and parieto-occipital cortex — is affected, she noted. “So we already know that there is some clue that the visual processing part of the brain is important.”

Current visuo-perceptual tests measure only one or two aspects of visual processing and tend to be “too easy,” said Dr Weil. “Everyone does very well on them and by the time they do badly, their disease may have progressed quite a bit. We need trickier tests.”

As well, current tests measure visual processing only in small numbers of patients. Online testing enables access to large numbers of patients.

…

“People think of PD as a disorder of movement but it’s much more complex and affects much more than just movement.”

A key question then, she said, is how does PD affect the brain? “Whatever it is that causes PD doesn’t just involve the deep part of the brain, but also involves the thinking and memory parts, and the fact that people have trouble with these tests suggests that those bits are involved.”

 

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An NIH-Kennedy Center Initiative to Explore Music and the Mind

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Link to full article:  http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2630954

(I know how to embed a link inside text – just chose not to do it that way this time, thanks for the advice, folks).  Here’s a couple of quotes from the article:

Music is fundamental to the human species in ways that reach beyond entertainment or pastime. In Musicophilia, Oliver Sacks noted that music can “calm us, animate us, comfort us, thrill us, or serve to organize and synchronize us at work or play, [but] it may be especially powerful and have great therapeutic potential for patients with a variety of neurological conditions.”

. . .

Processing music is one of the most cognitively demanding tasks our brains undertake, and creating and performing music is even more complex. We are just beginning to understand what neural processes underlie the effects of active music making, and a better appreciation of these processes would likely enhance understanding of brain responses to other stimuli and tasks. There is already compelling evidence that in children, music training assists development of language skills, auditory processing, and educational achievement compared with untrained peers,2– 4 and anecdotally, many top professionals across different disciplines have musical training in their background.

The article describes the beginning of this initiative and why it is important – it will be interesting to follow this topic in the future.

Here’s the reference list from the article. More good info there.

References

1.

Schlaug  G.  Musicians and music making as a model for the study of brain plasticity.  Prog Brain Res. 2015;217:37-55. doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2014.11.020PubMed

2.

Hallam  S.  The power of music: its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people.  Int J Music Educ. 2010;28(3):269-289. doi:10.1177/0255761410370658Article

3.

The Arts and Human Development: Learning Across the Lifespan. National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with US Dept of Health and Human Services. https://www.arts.gov/sites/default/files/TheArtsAndHumanDev.pdf. 2011. Accessed April 5, 2017.

4.

Moreno  S, Bialystok  E, Barac  R,  et al.  Short-term music training enhances verbal intelligence and executive function.  Psychol Sci. 2011;22(11):1425-1433.PubMedArticle

5.

Bailey  JA, Zatorre  RJ, Penhune  VB.  Early musical training is linked to gray matter structure in the ventral premotor cortex and auditory-motor rhythm synchronization performance.  J Cogn Neurosci. 2014;26(4):755-767.PubMedArticle

6.

Patel  AD.  Why would musical training benefit the neural encoding of speech? the OPERA hypothesis.  Front Psychol. 2011;2:142. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00142PubMedArticle

7.

Norman-Haignere  S, Kanwisher  NG, McDermott  JH.  Distinct cortical pathways for music and speech revealed by hypothesis-free voxel decomposition.  Neuron. 2015;88(6):1281-1296.PubMedArticle

8.

Limb  CJ, Braun  AR.  Neural substrates of spontaneous musical performance: an FMRI study of jazz improvisation.  PLoS One. 2008;3(2):e1679.PubMedArticle

9.

Salimpoor  VN, Benovoy  M, Larcher  K, Dagher  A, Zatorre  RJ.  Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music.  Nat Neurosci. 2011;14(2):257-262.PubMedArticle