LIVING WITH PARKINSON'S
When living with Parkinson's Disease, patients will struggle with real-time movement and aligning their perception to their real actions. This causes challenges when reaching to grab something and/or hold onto something. This results in risk of dropping items, falling, and worse. We leverage The LSVT BIG program to help.
The LSVT BIG program has been incredible in helping patients with Parkinson's improve and maintain their "real-time" movements and keep those movements in alignment with their perception of what their body is doing. Put simply, we can help reduce fall risk and the consequences of missing and dropping everyday items.
DOES THIS REPLACE THE MEDICATION?
Although the medication helps, the truth is that without exercises such as those in the LSVT BIG program, the body tends to get "lazy" and lower its own natural production of dopamine because it is being supplied "from the outside." By introducing exercises, the body is "coerced" to keep producing its own dopamine, thus allowing better functioning when medication levels are lower.
Put simply, by staying active, aligning body-perception, and maintaining healthy dopamine levels, we can reduce the impacts of Parkinson's Disease.
LSVT BIG Details
LSVT BIG exercises are composed of several movements. Each movement is designed to be an over-emphasized movement. The purpose of these wide-range movements is to promote the creation of the brain chemical dopamine that helps in the regulation of movement. Secondly, those with Parkinson's have an underlying sensory problem. Their movements are slow and small, but they believe they are moving normally. This is very important, especially when a patient is taking medications for Parkinson's. The decreased circulating dopamine levels and impacted perception of actual movement are commonly why clients have on and off times with respect to medication dosage wearing off.
Often times the question arises:
Why are exercises needed if a patient is on medication?
