ScienceDaily (May 16, 2007) — A new study from researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) shows that treadmill exercises may benefit patients with Parkinson's Disease and those with similar movement disorders.
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Recent studies have shown that exercise can have beneficial effects in patients with Parkinson's Disease but the underlying reasons haven't been fully explored. This new study using treadmill exercise in animal models looked at the effects of dopamine in motor learning and execution.
Parkinson's Disease is a chronic and degenerative disease that leads to slowness, balance disorders, tremors and difficulty in walking. The disease results from the loss of dopamine-producing nerve cells in the brain. It is critical as a stimulator of motor system nerves in the body. While there is no current cure for the disease, several treatments do offer relief from its symptoms.
This particular study looked at treadmill exercise and its effects between animal models with and without a loss of certain cells that are similar to what a Parkinson's Patient might suffer. Given the importance of dopamine in Parkinson's Disease, the researchers looked at changes in dopamine levels, among other results.
Researchers found that the subjects with cell loss and that exercised indeed had an effect on dopamine levels while normal subjects showed less of a difference in levels.
"Our study shows that the beneficial effects of exercise in Parkinson's Disease may be due to a more efficient use of dopamine, "says Giselle Petzinger, M.D., assistant professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study's first author. "Surviving dopamine cells in our animal models- made to simulate what Parkinson's patients suffer with- subjected to intensive treadmill exercise appear to work harder."
Studies with John Walsh, Ph.D., associate professor at the USC Andrus Gerontology Center and a co-investigator of the study, showed that these cells release greater amounts of dopamine and decrease the rate of its removal from the synapse compared to neurons in subjects that do not undergo exercise.
The findings suggest that the benefits of treadmill exercise on motor performance may be accompanied by changes in dopamine neurotransmission that are different in the injured subjects compared to the non-injured."Studies in our animal model of Parkinson's disease support the fact that exercise is beneficial for patients with Parkinson's," says Jakowec. "Exercise may help the injured brain to work more efficiently by allowing the remaining dopamine producing neurons to work harder and in doing so may promote stronger connections in the brain."
Further studies will investigate if beneficial effects of exercise have long-term effect on the injured brain, identifying the molecular links between exercise and the brain, and to better understand the molecular mechanisms within neurons that lead to these changes.
The study is led by USC neuroscientist Michael Jakowec, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurology and appears in the May 16 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
Funding for this study comes from the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, Team Parkinson Los Angeles, the George and MaryLou Boone Foundation, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the US Army Neurotoxin Exposure Treatment Research Program.
Reference: "Effects of Treadmill Exercise on Dopaminergic Transmission in the 1-Methyl-4-Phenyl-1,2,3,6-Tetrahydropyridine-Lesioned Mouse Model of Basal Ganglia Injury", Petzinger, G.,Walsh, J.,Akopian, G., Hogg, E., Abernathy, A., Arevalo, P.,Turnquist, P., Vuckovic, M., Fisher, B.,Togasaki, D., Jakowec, M. Journal of Neuroscience, May 16, 2007.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Rehab Can Be Fun And Games
Music is helping Sally Smith find her groove.
In recent years, the tremors of Parkinson's disease have made many once-routine tasks a lot more difficult for the Topeka woman. She says she had trouble walking, sitting up straight and balancing.
She even struggled to get up from a chair, which made her feel left out at her Eagles Auxiliary meetings. When everyone else would stand to salute the flag, Sally says, she would always be sitting at the table.
Kansas Rehab therapist Karen Farron is helping Sally overcome those challenges. Many of the tools they use, though, fancy – scarves and balls for instance.
Farron says therapists at Kansas Rehab evaluate people’s strengths and people’s challenges and identify exercises to address them in a fun way. She says most people don't like to exercise, but if when told they'll feel like a kid again, it's a less threatening way to begin.
The fun does serve a serious purpose. Reaching for the scarves, for example, improves range of motion. A series of exercises with raquetballs works on coordination and grasping skills. The balls even helped Sally work to easily rise from a chair again. Ferron explains that bouncing the ball already has the weight shifted forward, and focusing on the bouncing of the ball helps a person complete the standing movement without thinking.
Many of the tasks are founded in rhythm. Working with an interactive metronome program helps patients like Sally see the reaction time in their movements. It’s a feeling that can be mimicked with music.
Ferron says Parkinson's patients in particular often have difficulty initiating movement. She says they know what they want to do but the information doesn’t translate into action. She says rhythm will help initiate movement without hesitation, which decreases the risk of falling and the feeling of frustration.
Using rhythm also helps reinforce new ways of doing familiar actions to improve function, like drawing or writing. Just a few days after learning new strategies for forming letters, Sally's writing went from illegible to clear.
Ferros says using exercises with concrete results offers another benefit. She says instead of telling a doctor they simply don't feel right, a patient can offer very specific information, such as the how much longer it takes to get up and down, or the number of steps it's now taking to cover a certain distance.
Sally says it’s working for her. She's noticed a marked improvement, and is proud she’s once again able to join in that show of patriotism, standing with her fellow group members to salute the flag.
In recent years, the tremors of Parkinson's disease have made many once-routine tasks a lot more difficult for the Topeka woman. She says she had trouble walking, sitting up straight and balancing.
She even struggled to get up from a chair, which made her feel left out at her Eagles Auxiliary meetings. When everyone else would stand to salute the flag, Sally says, she would always be sitting at the table.
Kansas Rehab therapist Karen Farron is helping Sally overcome those challenges. Many of the tools they use, though, fancy – scarves and balls for instance.
Farron says therapists at Kansas Rehab evaluate people’s strengths and people’s challenges and identify exercises to address them in a fun way. She says most people don't like to exercise, but if when told they'll feel like a kid again, it's a less threatening way to begin.
The fun does serve a serious purpose. Reaching for the scarves, for example, improves range of motion. A series of exercises with raquetballs works on coordination and grasping skills. The balls even helped Sally work to easily rise from a chair again. Ferron explains that bouncing the ball already has the weight shifted forward, and focusing on the bouncing of the ball helps a person complete the standing movement without thinking.
Many of the tasks are founded in rhythm. Working with an interactive metronome program helps patients like Sally see the reaction time in their movements. It’s a feeling that can be mimicked with music.
Ferron says Parkinson's patients in particular often have difficulty initiating movement. She says they know what they want to do but the information doesn’t translate into action. She says rhythm will help initiate movement without hesitation, which decreases the risk of falling and the feeling of frustration.
Using rhythm also helps reinforce new ways of doing familiar actions to improve function, like drawing or writing. Just a few days after learning new strategies for forming letters, Sally's writing went from illegible to clear.
Ferros says using exercises with concrete results offers another benefit. She says instead of telling a doctor they simply don't feel right, a patient can offer very specific information, such as the how much longer it takes to get up and down, or the number of steps it's now taking to cover a certain distance.
Sally says it’s working for her. She's noticed a marked improvement, and is proud she’s once again able to join in that show of patriotism, standing with her fellow group members to salute the flag.
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