This week, Deaf awareness week runs from the 4th to 10th of May. I was asked by Parkinson’s UK to take an exercise class for Deaf people who have Parkinson’s. This is what I came up with:
Balance
The first area I want to address is the need to train the visual and somatosensory system for improving balance issues associated with vestibular dysfunction.
To train your visual system, try tracking an object. For this exercise, use a scarf.
Seated in a chair, hold the scarf with your arm out straight and move it around in front of you in all different directions. Keep your head still and just use your eyes to follow the scarf as it moves.
Next, move the scarf and let both your head and your eyes follow it.
Finally, move the scarf while keeping your eyes tracking it, but turn your head in the opposite direction to the scarf and your eyes.
Practise doing each exercise for about 10 seconds. In doing this, you are teaching your body to use vision appropriately.
The somatosensory system lets us know about objects in our external environment through touch and the position and movement of our body using our muscles. It can decline with age and contribute to postural instability.
To train your somatosensory system you can remove or dampen visual input by turning down the lights, wearing sunglasses or closing your eyes when doing exercises at home. If you sit on a hard surface this will maximise somatosensory input as you will feel it more. Performing standing exercises in socks or bare feet will enhance somatosensory input even further, helping to improve your balance.
You can find more information on the sensory systems here: https://www.molyfit.co.uk/molyfit-books/
We then did a light warm up consisting of marching on the spot, progressing with arm swings and knee raises.
To help initiate movement and combat freezing, use visual cues such as scarves, balls, dots and hurdles. The exercises we used during the session were PD Warrior exercises and can be found here:
Finally, we ended the session with some boxing PD work. This is an especially good exercise as it focuses on repetitive, high-intensity movements to improve hand-eye coordination.
For more information on exercises for Parkinson’s, take a look here: https://www.molyfit.co.uk/exercise-guidance-for-parkinsons/