(Great Falls, Montana) Eileen Lane's doctor first thought something might be wrong when he noticed that she no longer swung her left arm when she walked.
Soon after, Lane, 75, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
Lane had no idea her arm didn't swing normally. That's a common issue with Parkinson's — people think their movements are normal, when in reality they are actually small and weak.
"It slows your movement down, and it can almost freeze your movement," said Julie Bliss, physical therapist at the Great Falls Clinic. "They're really not aware that they're not moving right."
Bliss recently started offering a physical therapy program to help treat the movement, balance and flexibility issues that can accompany Parkinson's.
"They're saying it may slow down the disease progression," Bliss said of the program.
The program is called LSVT-BIG. LSVT originally was developed as a speech therapy program, called LSVT-LOUD, launched in 1993. It focused on teaching patients to speak louder. Parkinson's can cause people to speak softly, but they often aren't aware of the change in their voice.
LSVT-BIG, introduced in 2007, uses the same theory, but with movement. Patients use exaggerated movements during therapy sessions, such as big arm swings, or high knee steps, with the idea that those large movements will balance out with their small movements to keep them moving normally.
The research for both programs was funded through National Institutes of Health grants.
Bliss said the program retrains the body to move normally.
"It's kind of changing the sense of what your body's doing and what your mind thinks you're doing," Bliss said. "The brain is actually retraining how to do some of the movements."
Patients attend LSVT sessions an hour a day, four days a week, for four consecutive weeks.
Lane and Tom Mitcham graduated from the program last week.
They both saw huge improvements over the past month.
"Every day we came back, there was improvement," Mitcham said.
Lane had no idea how much her walking and other movements had declined in the two years since she was diagnosed with Parkinson's.
"I thought I was really OK, but I wasn't," she said.
Mitcham had been dragging a foot when he walked. Now, after LSVT, he's running and jogging, something he hasn't been able to do in several years. He also no longer uses a handrail going up and down stairs.
"I wish I would have done it three years ago," Mitcham said of the program.
On the first day of the program, Bliss did a series of tests with Lane and Mitcham. During the last week, she tested them again.
One of those tests measures how long it takes the patient to get out of a chair, walk a short distance and sit back down. On the first day, Lane's time was 17 seconds. On the last day she was down to seven seconds.
Another test measures how many times in 30 seconds a person can stand up and sit back down in a chair. On the first day, Mitcham was able to complete nine repetitions. On the last day, he did 27.
After patients finish the program, they continue to do the exercises everyday for the rest of their lives.
"Exercise is your medicine," Bliss said.
"I'm 75," Lane said. "If I live to be 90, I'm going to do it everyday."
The sooner people get into the LSVT program the better because it may actually slow the Parkinson's progression.
"It's never too late, but the sooner the better," Bliss said.
Bliss can modify the program to meet each patient's needs, depending on where they are in the disease's progression.
"It's very different with each patient," she said.
Bliss will continue to offer LSVT-BIG to about two patients a month.
(Source: greatfallstribune.com)
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