Show 1090: How Intense Exercise Benefits Parkinson Patients
The People's Pharmacy
Joe and Terry Graedon
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2017
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Parkinson’s disease makes it difficult for people to move. In addition to tremors or twitches, people with Parkinson’s often feel stiff and find it difficult to walk easily. Their handwriting shrinks, and their voice may become hoarse or soft.
How Intense Exercise Affects Symptoms:
While there are medications to treat Parkinson’s disease, recent research suggests that patients with this condition can benefit greatly from forced exercise: that is, exercising quite a bit faster and harder than they normally would choose. Dr. Jay Alberts tells us how he discovered these benefits on a tandem bike ride with a patient. Then he describes his research and its implications. Patients doing forced intense exercise had about 30 percent improvement in their symptoms compared to those doing voluntary exercise.
Is Intense Exercise Practical?
You’ll learn about a program at the YMCA that is designed to provide forced exercise for people with Parkinson’s disease. Kathy Helmuth explains how she and her colleagues have implemented the program at the Sarasota, FL, YMCA.
How Do the Rest of Us Benefit from Intense Exercise?
People with Parkinson’s disease are not the only ones to reap unexpected benefits from intense exercise. Dr. Jordan Metzl tells us about high intensity interval training and how it affects the brain as well as the muscles. In his popular group training in New York City, participants have a huge range of ages and fitness, and all have fun and improve their health.
This Week’s Guests:
Jay Alberts, PhD, is Vice Chair of Innovations within the Neurological Institute and researcher in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering of the Cleveland Clinic. He has been leading the Pedaling for Parkinson’s Program and research for 15 years and is successfully translating observations in the field to the laboratory and now to the larger community of PD patients.
His articles have been published in Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews (Oct. 2011); IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering (May 2013); Brain Connectivity (2013); BMC Neurology (Apr. 24, 2015); Parkinson’s Disease (Nov. 23, 2016); International Journal of Exercise Science (Jan. 1, 2017); and Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry (June 12, 2017).
Kathy Helmuth, RN, is the co-creator of the Parkinson’s Cycling Coach Training program. She is a wellness professional at the Sarasota, Florida, YMCA. The photograph is of Kathy Helmuth and two participants in the program.
Jordan D. Metzl, MD, is a nationally recognized sports medicine physician, best selling author, and fitness instructor who practices at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
Dr. Metzl is putting his ideas into practice as he pioneers the link between the worlds of medicine and fitness to promote health. He created the IronStrength community fitness program which provides free fitness classes tor thousands of New Yorkers each year to promote activity and wellness and is teaching other physicians around the world to do the same.
Dr. Metzl has written many books, including his most recent, Dr. Jordan Metzl’s Workout Prescription: 10, 20 & 30-Minute High-Intensity Interval Training Workouts for Every Fitness Level.
Listen to the Podcast:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Joe Graydon. |
| 0:02.5 | I'm Terry Graydon. |
| 0:04.0 | Welcome to this podcast of the People's Pharmacy, where we bring you the stories behind the health headlines. |
| 0:10.4 | This podcast is brought to you by Redux Industries, makers of utterly smooth body cream. |
| 0:16.2 | 800-345-7339 on the web at utter cream.com. |
| 0:31.0 | Parkinson's disease is a progressive debilitating movement disorder. |
| 0:35.7 | Can something as simple as exercise control symptoms? |
| 0:39.2 | This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graydon. |
| 0:50.7 | Medications can be helpful, especially in the early stages of Parkinson's, but the benefits eventually fade. |
| 0:57.6 | Intense exercise has been shown to control symptoms at least as well as medicine without the side effects. |
| 1:03.6 | The researcher behind this discovery tells us how it works. |
| 1:07.6 | High intensity, interval training can also be beneficial for the rest of us. You're never too old |
| 1:13.9 | or out of shape to benefit from some kind of exercise. Coming up on the Pupils Pharmacy, the research |
| 1:20.2 | for peddling for Parkinson's and how we can all benefit from physical activity. First, this news. |
| 1:30.3 | In the People's Pharmacy, the People's news. In the people's pharmacy health headlines, how effective are flu shots? |
| 1:35.9 | The influenza virus changes from year to year, and consequently, the vaccine must change as well |
| 1:41.2 | to keep up. |
| 1:42.2 | This means that experts need to study vaccination effectiveness |
| 1:45.6 | every year to be able to tell how well their vaccination programs are working. An analysis of the |
| 1:52.5 | results from the 2015-2016 flu season has just been published in the New England Journal of |
| 1:58.5 | Medicine. The researchers used data from the |
| 2:01.1 | influenza vaccine effectiveness network, which kept records on children older than six months |
... |
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