Fitness Friday: Exercise for Parkinson’s Disease

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FORT MYERS, Fla. – There’s no overestimating the benefits of exercise for individuals with Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders. WINK News Fitness Expert Mike Drumm talks about fitness tips and both the physical and psychological benefits of exercise for people living with Parkinson’s Disease.

Parkinson’s Specific Exercise Benefits

Maintaining your motivation to exercise when you have rigidity or tremors from a movement disorder isn’t easy. A fitness program designed to empower people with PD to take control of the disease with daily exercise and can help with:

  • Moving about with ease and confidence in a crowd
  • Getting out of bed or rising from a chair independently
  •  Improved handwriting; dressing independently
  • Diminishing worry that stiffness, slow steps and other symptoms are obvious, regaining a sense of moving with normality

 

Are certain types of exercise best for people with Parkinson’s?

The best exercise is the one that your care team approves of and that appeals to you, because you’ll stick with it. Some options seem to be working particularly well for people with PD:

  • Tai Chi or “moving meditation,” is a slow, graceful, and relaxed series of movements that combines flexibility and balance exercise with deep breathing and meditation.
  • Boxing is gaining popularity among some people with PD, who find they gain hope and improve quality of life through a non-contact-boxing-based fitness curriculum.

The Hope Parkinson Program provides support, counseling and other services needed for quality of life. For our local Parkinson’s Community Hope Parkison and sign-up for their newsletter. They offer many support groups a classes FREE of charge.

 

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