Today’s topic takes us to the intersection of dancing and Parkinson’s disease.  Dancing isn’t just another exercise recommended for PWP. Dancing combines the intense workout of an aerobic exercise class with other classes focused on strength, flexibility and balance.  Plus, it is set to music and fun. The dancer needs to connect the mind with the body in order to perform the dance moves. Yet, PD dancing classes are for everyone and for all mobility levels.  So, channel your inner Fred Astaire and keep listening to this episode to find out more from a PD dance instructor and student.

A healthy diet packed with nutrition isn’t just good for Parkinson’s patients. It’s good for everyone. However, there are a few changes you can make to your diet that can help with symptoms as well as your overall health outcomes. While there is no one-size-fits-all diet plan for PD, there are some guidelines we can follow to live our best life and enjoy some good meals. 

Today, our guests will review general food categories, discuss organic foods versus non-organic and what incremental changes we may want to consider in our meal planning.  Stay tuned!

In this episode, we will be speaking with a movement disorder specialist and a patient about the next generation of Deep Brain Stimulation technology – just approved by the FDA.  This new BrainSense system is the next step toward a closed loop communication between brain activity and the smart software and hardware that can make a huge difference in a PD patient’s quality of life.

This episode is for everyone. It is about ending Parkinson’s disease. My guest is one of the authors of the newly released book appropriately titled “Ending Parkinson’s Disease.” In it, he and his colleagues describe some of the preventable causes of the disease and propose 25 concrete steps all of us can take to end PD. He takes us through how some of the same tactics were used to change the course of diseases like HIV, polio and breast cancer. It will be difficult NOT to be inspired to take action after listening to this podcast episode.

When I think of motivation and inspiration, whether in the context or not in the context of Parkinson’s disease, I think of today’s guest – Jimmy Choi. When I mention this to my non-Parkinson’s friends, they get excited because they think I know the famous shoe designer and just mispronounced his name.  Nope. This Jimmy is truly an inspiration. As you’ll learn from listening today, Jimmy was in complete denial for about 8 years until something happened that shook him to his core and got him to focus on living his best life with PD.  This is a very compelling story of denial to world record holder and TV phenomenon.

Our lives have definitely changed during this pandemic. In some respects, we are lucky that technology was ready to help us manage our lives while avoiding human contact as best we could.  We can order groceries online, we can order meals online, we can stream movies and old TV sitcoms, we can have Zoom happy hours with long time friends, we can play Bridge online, and we can even visit with our doctors using software and mobile devices. This is called telehealth or telemedicine and it has been around for years. What are the advantages and disadvantages? Does it work for PD patients? What do you need to know to prep for a visit? Does your insurance pay for it? Our guest today is a MDS who has been using this technology for many years. She will share her experiences with this ever more important technology.  Please stay tuned.

We may be all tired of hearing about the novel coronavirus – COVID-19.  However, it is prudent to learn more about how it might affect the PD community specifically.  What is known, what are we yet to learn? What should we be concerned about? Should we be more vigilant than the otherwise healthy population? What should we be doing to help ourselves through these challenging times?  Don't miss this conversation with Dr. Holly Shill, director of the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center.

Dr. Becky Farley is our guest speaker on this episode.  Dr. Farley is the CRO/Founder of the Parkinson’s Wellness Recovery or PWR! and a well recognized guru in PD exercise.  We also speak with the PD program director at a local JCC that offers PWR classes.  We talk about why we should exercise and what we should be doing in this Part 2 of our exercise episodes.

Getting enough exercise is important to every person for numerous reasons. However, for the Parkinson’s patient it seems to possibly be even more important. For the PD patient, muscle weakness, coordination or balance issues, fatigue, mood fluctuations and other changes that happen over time can be improved by adding exercises to your weekly routine.

In the next 2 episodes, we speak with well recognized PD fitness experts, Nate Coomer with the Parkinson’s Fitness Project and Dr. Becky Farley the founder of Parkinson’s Wellness Recovery or PWR!. Both have spent their careers working to improve the PD patient’s quality of life through exercise. We discuss not only why but what exercises are most helpful.  And, how best to carry on when we are unable to go to a gym during the coronavirus crisis. You don’t want to miss these episodes.

Our first podcast episode covered the medications used for the motor symptoms experienced by Parkinson's patients.  Back by popular demand, Dr. David Shprecher will explain the non-motor symptoms of the disease and what medications are used to treat each of these. This is a very informative episode you will want to listen to at least twice.