Welcome Parkinson's UK Excellence Network Exercise HUB Study Day Participants
“Exercise is a physiological tool that promotes brain health, repair, adaptation, and behavioral recovery from the inside.”
- Dr. Becky Farley
Thank you for visiting our special webpage developed just for YOU as a participant in the Parkinson’s UK Excellence Network Exercise HUB Study Day on September 30th, 2022 I am looking forward to interacting with you virtually as a speaker and grateful for the opportunity to introduce you to PWR! the organization, and our PWR!Moves Curriculum!
PWR! and the Excellence Network Exercise HUB share visions for building collaborative networks of PD-specialized rehab and exercise professionals. We both want persons with Parkinson disease (PWP) to have access to ongoing PD-specific evidence-informed rehabilitation and exercise programming that is safe and effective to increase physical activity, reduce symptoms and perpetuate functional mobility.
I have been working with PWP since 2000 - when the research on exercise in animals with PD was first published! That research challenged the existing dogma in rehabilitation - to keep things easy for PWP! It was the start of the exercise revolution for PWP and I was ALL IN!
Fortunately, as a new postdoc in a motor control lab at the University of Arizona, I took on the Parkinson research projects, shadowed a Movement Disorders Specialized Neurologist, and began to study the muscle activation problems that interfered with everyday movement. That research and those experiences helped me acquire NIH funding to be the first to demonstrate in a clinical trial that challenging PWP to practice bigger and faster whole-body movements (amplitude training) works! That research established intensive whole-body amplitude training (as a single attentional focus) as a rehabilitation protocol (LSVT BIG ®).
While the experience of seeing people get better with intensive amplitude training was rewarding, I wanted to do something more comprehensive to directly get to the heart of the mobility and functionality problems in persons with Parkinson disease (PD). I knew an approach with a singular attentional focus on amplitude (for the symptom of bradykinesia) was not comprehensive enough; general whole-body movement training was not specific enough; and blocked, high-effort practice was not complex enough to address real-life function and mobility challenges! Finally, the repetition of the same exact research protocol every 6 months, or every year with the same person living with a neurodegenerative disease was not consistent with my clinical reasoning as a physical therapist or neuroplasticity principles of practice.
The PWR!Moves Curriculum was an extension of that first research, the basis for a multi-symptom approach to retrain and sustain motor control skills shown to deteriorate in PWP and which underlie real-world everyday movements (i.e., functional mobility). It is not a strict protocol, but a flexible framework that allows for activities to be performed in any position, adapted, regressed, progressed and personalized. It is implemented with progressive aerobic exercise for optimizing brain health and connectivity. Learning techniques are applied through variable and progressive physical and cognitive challenge to make functional skill training more like real life. The curriculum is updated annually as we translate new research so that you can always implement cutting-edge programming. And, for the first time, therapists and exercise professionals can share a common goal - to put off the functional deterioration that interferes with everyday movements and exercise performance through “task specific” or “fitness-specific” practice, respectively! I believe that lifelong access to this type of integrated “function-first” programming may optimize and perpetuate functional mobility and slow disease progression.
Spark your interest to learn more
We have included many resources on this webpage to spark your interest in learning more about the most disabling aspect of living with a neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson’s - the loss of automatic and salient everyday function and mobility. We hope that you will want to train functional mobility like a sport; integrate the fundamentals (PWR!Moves) into all physical activity (i.e., fitness, recreation, daily life), and build collaborations between healthcare and community to ensure PWP have ongoing access to research-informed proactive and restorative programs to put off functional decline. Bi-directional referrals and cycling back and forth from rehab to community and back is necessary to eliminate barriers, keep people exercising at their optimal challenge point physically and cognitively, and address health changes proactively to prevent attrition, injury and isolation.
Get the most out of the PWR!Moves
To get the most out of the Exercise Hub Study Day PWR!Moves practicums I recommend it would help that you have already familiarized yourself with the “fundamentals” in the two videos below and explore some of the many other FREE resources we have hand-picked for you as examples of the type of services, education, and resource we offer locally and globally for person with PD, therapists and exercise professionals.
Handouts for the Presentation
We are offering handouts for Dr. Farley's presentation for your personal use. Please enter your email information to download them immediately and we will email the link to you as well. Thank you.
Why the PWR!Moves supports those with Parkinson's
Dr. Farley discusses the uniqueness of the PWR!Moves and how it applies to the motor skills that underlie your everyday life skills and how research shows these skills deteriorate with Parkinson's. As she shows us the basic PWR!Moves, you can see how they can help you to continue to lead a full life in everything you do with Parkinson's.
PWR!Moves are the core of our Parkinson Disease specific functional exercise and physical therapy programs. The Basic 4 PWR!Moves are designed to each target a skill known to deteriorate in people with Parkinson disease, which often lead to loss of mobility and function. The PWR!Moves can be practiced in multiple positions, made progressively more physically and cognitively challenging, and be used differently to target each person’s unique symptoms individually. PWR!Moves help you mitigate symptoms and rebuild functionality, no matter how you incorporate them into your life. They're beneficial in stand-alone group exercise classes, integrated into your daily activities and routines (such as activities of daily living, recreation, sports, and hobbies), in physical and exercise therapy settings. For More information please visit our website at www.pwr4life.org To begin PWR!Moves as a person with Parkinson's visit our website at www.exerciseforbrainchange.org
Educational Workshops
Parkinson’s Foundation Accredited - PWR!Moves Instructor Workshop for community exercise classes and personal training and foundational knowledge for integrating function into all physical activity.
PWR!Moves Therapist Certification Workshops – Since 2010 providing a comprehensive framework for implementing personalized, goal or task-specific therapy interventions for persons with PD of all disease severity that are proactive and restorative, and cutting-edge.
Exercise Recommendations from the Parkinson's Foundation
"The Parkinson's Foundation, in collaboration with the American College of Sports Medicine, created new Parkinson’s disease (PD) exercise recommendations to ensure that people with Parkinson’s are receiving safe and effective exercise programs and instruction. The guidelines are the result of a convening including 34 exercise professionals and thought leaders who met in March 2020 to help develop the framework for these guidelines."
At Parkinson Wellness Recovery, our members speak volumes. The programs at the PWR!Gym help our clients move better, feel better, and fight Parkinson disease every day.
And then my legs stopped working....
Read more about Thom Cope our PWR!Gym Member who has recently finished his 14th 5k Achievement since being diagnosed in 2015.
Find out what PWR! has for you!
Follow our social media and find out when we will have registrations for Wellness Series, Retreat, Guided Plans, Workshop for Fitness Instructors and Physical Therapists.
PWR! is Hiring for a Faculty Instructor
2025 PD Care Connection Conference is March 12-14
Registration for the PWR! Retreat 2025 is OPEN!
Originally PWR!Moves Certified in 2022? This is Your Year to Recertify!
AP: Physical therapy is ‘the best-kept secret in health care’
December 3 is #GivingTuesday
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