How can physiotherapy help people dealing with Parkinson's?

The purpose of physiotherapy treatments for Parkinson's patients is to enable maximum quality of movement, functional independence, increasing general physical fitness and minimizing secondary complications. In addition to all of these, the physiotherapist assists and guides self-care and maintaining safety in everyday life, adjusts aids for mobility and walking, and advises on adapting the home and environment.

What things can the physiotherapist help you with?

1) Do you exercise? Physical exercise will maintain your functional ability over time, ease the symptoms of the disease and may slow down the progression of the disease.

If you find it difficult to keep up with the activity or find the right activity for you, contact a physical therapist

The physiotherapist will guide you in the practice aimed at your relevant problems. Ask the physical therapist to guide you in self-practice at home and to build together with you an organized weekly plan for practice. Calculate together whether there are sports activities that you like that take place near where you live and incorporate these activities into the plan. Ask the physical therapist to make sure that your weekly program contains everything you need - aerobic exercise, muscle strengthening, balance exercise, flexibility and agility.

      Anyone, at any level of fitness, at any level of function can exercise!!!

 2) Do you have difficulty getting up from the couch? Roll over in bed?

Learning techniques to make transitions more easily: if you have difficulty with functions such as moving and rolling in bed, transitioning from lying in bed to sitting, transitioning from sitting in a chair to standing, report this to the physical therapist and he will guide you in a variety of techniques and strategies in which these transitions can be made more easily.

 3) Do you fall?

If you feel unstable or suffer from falls, contact your physical therapist in order to identify the main causes of the balance disorder, and to receive a treatment plan to reduce the risk of falls.

The various health insurance funds have dedicated groups for preventing falls and practicing balance - ask your physiotherapist and ask to join!

4) Do you have difficulty walking?

Gait disturbances are common in Parkinson's disease. If you feel that you are walking slowly, dragging your feet, experiencing freezing symptoms or transitioning to fast walking/uncontrolled running, ask the physiotherapist to teach you to use compensation strategies - simple techniques that use different types of sensory stimulation, leading to improved mobility and walking. In fact, these techniques activate healthy brain areas and in this way bypass the brain area affected by the disease and thus enable quality movement. Another compensatory strategy - cognitive, improves the quality of the movement by directing attention to specific aspects, for example focusing on the length of the step or the shaking of the hands. These techniques have been scientifically proven to be effective in improving walking and functions such as getting up and mobility in bed.

5) Is it difficult for you to perform delicate operations with your hands?

Ask the physiotherapist to teach you exercises to preserve and encourage the mobility of the hands and fingers.

Contact the occupational clinic for the fitting of auxiliary accessories required for actions in which there is difficulty in the function of the hands such as eating and drinking, writing, leisure activities, dressing and bathing.

6) Do you need a walking aid? For other accessories at home? The physiotherapist will be able to help you decide whether it is necessary to use a walking aid, which one, and where it can be obtained.

7) Depending on the need, the physiotherapy treatment will also include techniques to alleviate and deal with pain and exercise to improve breathing capacity.

In summary, these are the things a physiotherapist can help you with:

• Building a weekly practice plan to maintain physical abilities
• Training for making transitions more easily
• Learning to use compensatory strategies to alleviate walking disorders
• Training regarding issues of balance and preventing falls
• Fitting an aid for walking and mobility

Share the close family members/caregivers in the training given by the physiotherapists so that they can help at home if you need it.

Goodbye,

Goliath

Dr. Galit Yogev Zeligman. I am a physiotherapist by profession, researcher and lecturer at the University of Haifa.

I invite those interested to raise questions concerning this matter and I will try to answer as best I can. In addition, I will share with you interesting and current relevant studies in this field.

To begin with, I would like to share a document written by me and by dear physiotherapists with extensive experience in the treatment of Parkinson's patients - Ruthi Tamir, Yael Rotem Galili and Dr. Talia Herman, and reviews the role of the physiotherapist in the treatment of Parkinson's patients. Although the text does not refer only to physical activity, I would love for you to read and find out in which areas the physiotherapist treating you can help.