Celebrating Parkinson's Awareness Month

It’s Parkinson’s Awareness Month and we wanted to take this opportunity to reach out to you and share our experiences as Physiotherapists. Parkinson’s Disease is the second most common neurological disease and is affecting the lives of many people in our community, and it could one day affect you or a family member. Our consultant physiotherapist Danielle Meldrum speaks eloquently about her experiences –

“I first became passionate about Parkinson’s Disease when I was treating a patient in hospital with the condition. I noticed that the nurses were often apprehensive as how to manage the patient and it seemed people would get easily frustrated with his inability to move quickly. As a Junior Physiotherapist at the time I prescribed the patient with a general lower limb exercise program and did some mobility practice, avoiding intensive therapy. But I felt there should be much more I could do to help.

After following up on my initial interest I decided to train in PD Warrior and LSVT BIG (2 specialised therapy programs for Parkinson’s Disease), and I now know that as a Physiotherapist we have so much to give to the Parkinson’s community. Instead of wrapping them up in cotton wool and letting them go at their own pace, we should be doing quite the opposite. We shouldn’t be afraid to challenge and get those with Parkinson’s working at a high level of intensity, helping them maintain a fantastic quality of life.

Another key point is that we shouldn’t be waiting until they start to deteriorate physically to commence therapy. As soon as someone is diagnosed with Parkinson’s they should be referred to a Physiotherapist. Both LSVT BIG and PD Warrior are even more effective in the earlier stages of the disease and continue to help in the later stages as well.

It’s time to change the way we view people with Parkinson’s Disease and change the way we manage their rehabilitation. It’s exciting to see the progress so far but I’m even more excited to see what comes next!”

Check out our website link https://mymobilephysio.com.au/parkinsons-therapy-lsvt-big/ or call 1300 79 12 49 to find out more.