How Jean Improved Her Parkinson’s Disease at Age 83

Meet Jean. She’s an 83-year-old retired nurse in British Columbia, and she has Parkinson’s Disease. Why did she start working with us? To reverse and slow down the effects of Parkinson’s. She wanted to reduce the muscle stiffness that comes with it, as well as improve a number of other issues, like reducing her shoulder pain, and restoring mobility to her replaced hip.

Fast forward to now, one year since she started working with us, and she:

 

• Reduced the medications that she was taking for Parkinson’s.
• Is able to walk a lot longer.
• Has way better balance.
• Is completely pain-free most mornings.

 

How did she do this? That’s what we’ll talk about in this article. You can expect to learn:

 

• What Jean has tried before to slow down the progression of Parkinson’s, and how it was working for her.
• Highlights of her exercise program.
• How her life is different today.

 

If you want to hear Jean tell her own story, check out this 12-minute video:

And if you’re feeling jealous of Jean, and want similar results for yourself, we have a program called “Strong, Supple Senior.” If you want to see whether that program is for you (or your parents), just fill out the application form on our home page, and we’ll schedule a quick, 10-15 minute phone or zoom chat. It’s not a hard sales pitch – we’ll just answer your questions.

What Jean Has Tried Before

To slow down the progression of Parkinson’s, Jean has tried a couple of things, like medications, walking and her own exercise routine (outside of walking). But all of them had their share of problems.

Parkinson’s medications come with side effects like nausea, confusion, hallucinations and others.

She was also already exercising 4 days per week, but obviously not doing the right things, because her physical function was still deteriorating. It was just deteriorating slower. But better to improve than deteriorate.

She had also had a left hip replacement on 2019 which really decreased her strength and mobility in that left hip that she couldn’t seem to regain. Again, that’s despite exercising 4 days a week.

This was all taking a real toll on her mental health. In her video, she even mentions that she’d get up in the morning and have nothing to look forward to.

All this time, she had been getting my newsletters for a while, and eventually read one that I wrote about strength training after 60. It resonated with her, so she reached out to get help.

There were a few reasons that she decided to get a personal trainer:

 

• Effectiveness. It was clear that what she was doing wasn’t working. There was a big mismatch between effort and results. She was putting in a lot of effort and time (4 hours/week), but not getting results. She knew she needed to be doing something differently but wasn’t sure what. She figured that a professional would know.
• Safety. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t doing more damage than good, and there was a trained eye supervising her exercise, and making corrections to her technique right away should she be doing something wrong.
• Motivation: it’s easier to exercise and make progress when you have an appointment with somebody, as opposed to when you’re on your own.
• Social aspect: if you don’t have a lot of people to talk to, it’s nice to have someone to engage in social interaction with.

 

So we set her up with her trainer, Konstantinos, and they got started. If you’re wondering why she chose an online personal trainer as opposed to an in-person one where she lives, it’s for a couple of reasons. First – I won’t mince words – most personal trainers suck. Secondly, even those who don’t suck have very little to no knowledge in seniors, chronic conditions and Parkinson’s. In fact, not every city has a trainer who understands seniors, chronic conditions and Parkinson’s. The upside of doing things online is that you can hire trainers with expertise that local trainers may not have.

Jean’s Exercise Program

Three major things decline with Parkinson’s:

• Strength
• Reaction time
• Balance

So the program that Konstantinos designed for Jean was predominantly to improve these (not slow down their decline – but improve). In addition to that, because of Jean’s hip replacement in 2019 and shoulder problem, there was also some work done to improve function in both her hip and shoulder.

• Chair sit-to-stand: the goal is to get personal training to make your life outside the “gym” easier (“gym” is in quotation marks because Jean was exercising at home, with the equipment that she had). What’s more functional than getting up from sitting? Nothing. So that actually became her exercise. Wait until later in this article to see what kind of progress she’s made.
• Side-to-side lunges. The purpose of this exercise is to challenge and improve her balance, while maintaining good posture.
• Deadlifts: a major functional exercise. What makes it “functional”? It’s carryover to real life. In real life, you pick things up off the ground all the time. Might as well do it with good technique, to minimize the risk of injury. If you can build strength in this movement, it’ll decrease how difficult it is to pick things up off the ground, whether that’s groceries, laundry, furniture or grandkids.
• Plank: to build up Jean’s core strength.
• Biceps curls: to improve Jean’s upper body strength. This carries over well to carrying laundry, housework, etc.
• Reaction time exercises.

 

In addition to this, there were some exercises to help her restore strength and mobility to the hip where she had a replacement, and the shoulder that was lacking range of motion.

However if you just read about the exercises, you’d miss the “secret sauce” of the exercise program – the progression model, and the workout-by-workout adjustments that were made based on Jean’s progress from the previous workout, energy/fatigue levels, injuries, and more. After all, no exercise program should be a static program, where you’re doing the same exercises for the same weights, sets and reps every single time. An exercise program should be dynamic, intelligently, purposefully, and systematically changing the exercise variables workout-by-workout to move the client forward… as opposed to haphazardly changing the program whenever you feel like it, without rhyme or reason… like a lot of personal trainers do.

The Results

Methods are nice, but results are nicer. How did the plan work for Jean? Really well!

• The range of motion in her replaced hip is almost back to normal. It went from 30 degrees of abduction to 40 degrees.
• Her shoulder range of motion is also a lot better. Before, she only had 60 degrees of shoulder abduction. Now, she has 100. Before, she had 100 degrees of shoulder flexion, and now she has about 140.
• Her balance improved significantly. She can now stand on one leg for longer, and transfer weight from one foot to another laterally with much greater stability.
• When she first started, she could only stand up from her chair 12 times. Now, she’s added 10 pounds to that motion, and is doing it 15 times.
• Her reaction time is a lot better.

How Jean’s Life is Different Now

Our goal is to have exercise carry over to Jean’s life outside the “gym.” So did these improvements in strength, balance and coordination carry over to her life outside of her workouts? You bet! And quite dramatically, too!

 

• She’s now feeling so good, she booked a road trip to Copper Canyon (in northwestern Mexico) in the fall.
• She’s now going for 1-hour walks, pain-free, and it doesn’t drain her enery.
• Because of her significantly improved balance, she has a much lower fear of falling.
• A common effect of Parkinson’s is body pain first thing in the morning that wears off throughout the day. That pain is now a thing of the past.
• Another common effect of Parkinson’s is low energy levels. Now, her energy levels are significantly better.
• She can now play with her grandkids a lot more.
• Because of her improved shoulder range of motion, she can put things on and take things off top shelves in her cupboards. Simple things that you take for granted when your shoulder is fine, you really miss when you lose significant range of motion. Then, you really appreciate once you restore that range of motion.
• She reduced her Parkinson’s medications!!!

 

Overall, we’re very proud of Jean, and her resolve to not succumb to Parkinson’s. She’s made excellent progress on the “Strong, Supple Senior” program. If you want to see whether that program is for you (or your parents), just fill out the application form on our home page, and we’ll schedule a quick, 10-15 minute phone or zoom chat. It’s not a hard sales pitch – we’ll just answer your questions.