Yoga and Parkinson's Disease
Parkinson's disease is a painful, frustrating and debilitating disease. It affects the aged, and the exact cause is as yet unknown. The symptoms are as a result of the reduction of the neurotransmitters produced in the brain called dopamine. This then effects the nervous system and mainly the central nervous system. The function of the motor nerves are impaired, speech, posture, physical movement, shakiness and gait is affected. The most peculiar feature is the bent posture of the person affected. Normal walking is not possible, ability to think, respond and reason is impaired. They are forgetful of everyday things and even their own names. There is continuous tremor of the limbs and flexibility is almost nil. The range of movement of the limbs is tremendously impaired. The disease causes a rapid deterioration if it is not checked and slowed down by preventative movements.
About 2 years ago, upon returning from Yoga Vidya Gurukul, I was approached by my elderly neighbour. She asked me if there was maybe anything I could do to help her ailing husband. He was in his 70’s and diagnosed with Parkinsons about 6 months earlier. As a personal trainer I immediately accepted this challenge and agreed to assess him and draw up a training program. On completion of the evaluation, I was not very hopeful, as he battled to even walk properly, was unable to dress or feed himself efficiently, never mind taking on some training program. Luckily I was on such a positive note from my wonderful Ashram experience, I took it on. I drew information from my sports science background as well as from my yoga training and came up with a sort of eclectic program.
To start with we had to do all movements in a prone position. I realized that the muscle spasms were not balanced and that the one side of his body was more affected than the other. This caused the slight twist of the spine and lots of discomfort. Due to this I always started with the weaker side, repeated it on the right and then returned back again to the weaker side. This gradually brought about a better balance in the postural muscles. We had to start from the beginning to re- connect the brain with all the muscles, so we started with the following :
Lying flat on back, single arm raises overhead, be careful to make sure the back remains in the ground here and does not arch to try take the arm closer to the floor when it’s raised. We worked with the breath here too, inhaling and exhaling as is appropriate.
From here we progressed to angel breathing, arms at sides, outwardly raising overhead, cross at the wrists and bring down to hips, returning upwards and again to sides. Try to keep arms on the floor all the time. Keep awareness with the breath.
In time I got him to march like a soldier, but lying flat. We had to pull him up from here as he was unable to do that by himself. Slowly we progressed to working in a chair, knee extensions, shoulder shrugs etc. eventually, about 10 months later, to starting in a standing position. His toes had a life of their own, all pulled up and never on the floor. This created a serious balance and posture problem. I eventually had him walking around on his toes to try and get them active again. We did lots of flexion and extension, ankle rotations and stretching for all his muscles but in a supported way.
1 year later we had progressed to standing warm ups, he still could not bend down and stand up as he would fall over. We carried on with supported movements like the half spinal twists, knees to chest, half bridge, forward bends and cat and cow. We did a lot of sacral rock breathing, as his lower back, the sacrum was so stiff and did not want to move at all. In our second year, we started standing for a few seconds on 1 leg doing ankle movements and such. Now in our 3rd year, he is doing basic warm up movements, knee right into his chest, half bridge, cobra, fwd bend (not very flexible yet though ) ,cat and cow ( until the cows come home as it is so beneficial, activates 72 000 nerve endings ),camel, child pose, tree (for 1 minute ), warrior and is able to breathe slowly in for 4 cts and out for 8cts. ( this has taken 1 & 1/2 years to achieve as he was not aware of his breath at all. ) He also does yoga nidra almost every single day. He has been so motivated and we have trained everyday except on Sundays when he goes for a walk on our beach and on the rocks ( he could never have done that 1 & 1/2 years ago as he had no balance )
About 6 months ago, while out walking, he was attacked by a huge bull mastiff dog. The dog flew at him and he raised his arms to protect himself, so the dog grabbed both his forearms and mauled him before the owner ran out to pull him off my client. The result was that chunks of arm were bitten out of both forearms. We all feel that if his balance was not as good as it had gotten to be, the dog would have knocked him down immediately and the missing flesh would have been out of his throat and we would not have the pleasure of his company now . I still work with him 3 mornings a week and he trains on his own the rest of the days. I have attached some photos or for your interest. I hope this helps anyone else if they are ever in the same situation. I can only begin to imagine how frustrating this terrible disease is for the entire family involved. You can contact me for any further information.
Cheryl lancellas
cheryl@glassart.co.za
Note - The views expressed in this article are solely the views of author and does not reflect the views and style of Yoga Vidya Gurukul.
