I could talk all day about the benefits of exercise on every part of our body. How exercise improves Parkinson's symptoms and slows down the progression is unfortunately not fully understood but here is what we do know...

 

​What is Parkinson's?

Parkinson's results from the lack of a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine works in several pathways to help regulate movement. Dopamine is important for other pathways too which are responsible for our emotions and regulation of these emotions, regulation of hormones, and our reward/motivation pathway. This is why symptoms of Parkinson's are not just physical but can also be psychological. It is important to appreciate Parkinson's as a whole to fully understand how someone might be affected by it. 

Parkinson's can cause:

- rigidity

- slowness

- shuffling

- tremor (70%)

- anxiety

- facial masking

- cognitive impairment

- apathy

- constipation 

- low blood pressure 

- loss of smell or taste

- change in personality through lost interest in hobbies and reduced engagement 

- REM sleep disorders

- disrupted sleep

- restless leg syndrome

- moodyness

- and many more

You can easily see how this disease massively affects the person living with Parkinson's and the people around them. 

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Exercise and Parkinon's

In terms of treating Parkinson's medications are incredibly important for not only improving someones movement to reduce the "off" periods (lows of dopamine which can result severe Parkinson's symptoms) and improve their mood but also enable them to actually engage in exercise.

Exercise for Parkinson's is not just about improving strength, cardiovascular health, and many other normal outcomes of exercise its about giving people with Parkinson's a tool to actually fight back. Medication cannot slow down the loss of dopamine and the progression of the condition, but exercise can.

Exercise works in 3 main ways; neuroprotection, neurorestoration and neuroplasticity.

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Neuro-protection:

- Those with Parkinson's will still likely have about 20% of their original dopamine stores. They should also have the dopamine provided by the medication. Therefore it is important we make this dopamine even more effective. 

- Exercise improves the effectiveness of the dopamine already available in its pathways by making its job easier.

- Dopamine is used for movement pathways and like everything else in our life, it is a use it or lose it type of thing. the more we move the better our body gets at using the dopamine for movement by making sure it is being used efficiently and not being taken away for other pathways. 

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Neuro-restoration:

- The brain usually responds to exercise by making more dopamine, hence why you often feel good after exercising. This release is as good as it gets with medication (without the negative side effects, accept sweat, that could be seen as a nuisance)!

- the receptors of dopamine are stimulated through exercise they adapt to this stimulation by becoming more receptive and responsive to dopamine. 

- This occurs through brain derived neurotrophic factor being released during exercise (especially aerobic exercise) which works to protect and improve our neural pathways.

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Neuro-plasticity:

- This is the ability for all brains to adapt and change.

- For someone with a neurological condition it means that areas of the brain once adapted for something else can learn how to assist the areas of your brain that are struggling. 

- This is occurs in the right environments and is not easy! 

- The exercise must be interesting, personal, important, challenging, specific, repetitive and correct. 

- This is why it is good to pick something you enjoy, have company that makes you laugh and someone who can tell you when you are completing something wrong. We don't want you wasting all your good effort by strengthening poor movement!