Tag Archives: Symptoms

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That famous essay

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James Parkinson wrote an essay on “The Shaking Palsy” just over 200 years ago. Although science doesn’t stand still, and folks like Louis Pasteur, Alexander Fleming, and Jonas Salk came along to make important contributions in medical science, the field of Movement Disorders has, until recently, relied almost exclusively on the traits described by Parkinson in his essay to diagnose the disease. French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot made some advances in making distinctions between some of the symptoms and championed naming the disease after Dr.Parkinson.

Curious about the essay itself? it’s available online as a full access article in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry (downloadable as a PDF file.

An essay on the Shaking Palsy 

An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, by James Parkinson, was originally published as a monograph by Sherwood, Neely, and Jones (London, 1817). Punctuation and spelling follow the original text. Introduction Copyright © 2002 American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.

 

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Strength training can help with PD symptoms

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A review of studies indicates that strength training can help with mild to moderate Parkinson’s cases. (An earlier blog post here noted that a dance training program increased grey matter volume in the brain versus repetitive strength training. So don’t exclude either from your wellness program, is my [non-medical advice).

Review of strength training in people with Parkinson’s Disease

From the abstract:

Objective: To investigate the evidence on efficacy and limits of strength training in rehabilitation of Parkinson’s disease

Method:A comprehensive search on pubmed, clinical keys database using keywords Parkinson’s disease, physical therapy, strength training ,resistance training. The studies including Randomized controlled trails and systematic reviews published since 2005 are reviewed.

Results:36 studies identified through database searching. 25 studies are excluded due to duplicates, irrelevance, based on titles, outcome diversity. 5 systemic reviews and Meta analysis, 6 RCT are included. Review and analysis of articles is going on

Conclusion : The result of this review suggests that strength training program can be effective in people with mild and moderate parkinson’s disease. It can improve functional independency with increased muscle strength, gait parameters, posture and balance, all of these positive role on participation and quality of life

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Art, Dance, Medicine, Parkinson’s, Genetics, Oh My!

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Arts and Medicine research – my only wish is that they would look into the possibility of physical changes in the brains of people involved, and not just on co-creating knowledge:

Co-creating knowledge…

Next:

Dance therapy demonstrates a highly appropriate choice of intervention to stimulate plasticity processes, improve age-related deterioration, and thus contribute to successful aging. Health care professionals involved in the care of elderly individuals should whenever possible consider the feasibility of associating dance therapy as a stimulating and therapeutic activity.

Dance therapy in aging: A systematic review

“There were 2,334 studies, out of which 6 were chosen.” This review limited itself to dance as therapy for healthy aging adults, and excluded those studies that looked at Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s people. Again, I would hope that future studies look at changes in brain activity and structure, as well as observable differences in movement, etc.

Next, an open access article reviewing genetic risks involving Parkinson’s: “This study provides evidence that alleles associated with Parkinson disease risk, in particular GBA variants, also contribute to the heterogeneity of multiple motor and nonmotor aspects. Accounting for genetic variability will be a useful factor in understanding disease course and in minimizing heterogeneity in clinical trials.”

Genetic risk of Parkinson disease and progression: An analysis of 13 longitudinal cohorts

(Will have to read it in order to see what it says,  and compare it with my genome files to see what it means for me).

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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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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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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

 

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Management of sleep disturbances in PD – review and consensus recommendations

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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

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Amyloid-Beta and Parkinson’s Disease

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Amyloid-Beta and Parkinson’s Disease    (abstract only but list of references includes many available on PubMed)

From the abstract:

A better understanding of the role of this system and more specifically the role of Aβ in PD symptomatology, could introduce new treatment and repurposing drug-based strategies. For instance, apomorphine infusion has been shown to promote the degradation of Aβ in rodent models. This is further supported in a post-mortem study in PD patients although clinical implications are unclear. In this review, we address the clinical implication of cerebral Aβ deposition in PD and elaborate on its metabolism, its role in cognition and motor function/gait, and finally assess the potential effect of apomorphine on Aβ deposition in PD.

So it would seem that apomorphine might be a tool for helping with gait and balance problems…and cognitive decline.
 

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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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Reward Deficiency Syndrome

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I’ve been reading on a couple of topics recently – One is basically on music training and neuro-rehabilitation in neuro-degenerative diseases. The other is on what is theorized as the reward system in the brain, which includes the dopamine generating neurons, and the deficiency of dopamine, which factors into several different conditions. apparently ADHD, addictions to substances such as alcohol and cocaine, and narcolepsy are included.  (What? no mention of Parkinson’s?)

The article appears in Volume 1, issue 1,  2015, of the Journal of Reward Deficiency Synddromne at http://dx.doi.org/10.17756/jrds.2015-002  which is an online journal focused primarily on addictions and treatments. Other, more recent articles can be accessed freely. Worth a look, if ADHD and addictions are your field of interest.

As someone with a narcolepsy without cataplexy diagnosis, the article is interesting, especially since I have never been diagnosed as ADHD, which the authoors theorize are closely connected. Howewver, as one who has been known to multi-task well in the past, perhaps the ADHD element was never noticed because of my high IQ (g-intelligence, as some would call it). I could get away with reading Mad magazine in geometry class, tucked inside my  textbook, because I could keep up with the class while shifting my attention between the magazine, the teacher’s explanations, and the drawings on the chalkboard. Now, having slowed down due to Parrkinson’s, it might be apparent in he number of tasks started and left undone, the distractions of Facebook, and a general disorder.

Anyway, worth a thought or two of considefration…