Swim Therapy for Parkinson's Symptom Relief

8:00am is kind of early for me now since my Home Depot days of the 2:30am alarm clock. Nevertheless I was awake and walking through a light rain in the parking lot of the Peter B. Lewis Aquatic & Therapy Center headed for the front door. It was my first appointment there.

Inside the building the front desk personnel looked at my insurance cards, gave me a long medical questionnaire to fill out, a HIPPA briefing and an arm full of handouts. My therapist, Ron came out. He introduced himself and we walked back to an exam room where we reviewed my medical history.

I was impressed by Ron's knowledge of Parkinson's and his thorough reading of my medical record. He was really concerned that I wasn't using a chair when I take a shower. He told me that a lot of people only find out they have a balance problem when they fall in the tub and break an arm or fracture their skulls. He reminded me that falls are the number two cause of death of Parkinson's patients.

Next, I stripped to my briefs and Ron checked my strength and range of motion at a number of joints of my body. He recorded all this information in a laptop. Then he gave me a neurological exam that was as good as any neurologist has given me.

Finally he watched me walk and made some suggestions about how I could learn to take longer strides to eliminate the shuffle I have been developing. He pointed out that I was taking two striding steps but dragging my left foot on the third step. He said I would have to be aware of that drag which indicated the shortening of the stride so that I could step away from that drag to a normal pace.

Back at the desk Ron told me that he would design an exercise program for me. It would reduce my symptoms and allow me to do more physically. He gave me a twice weekly schedule for the next four weeks, told me to get some aquatic shoes, bring my swim suit and next week he'd start teaching me the exercises.

I'll keep you posted.

Doing Water Therapy

When my wife had to live in Florida for a couple of years, we rented a house that had a pool.

I'd had parkinson's for 4 years as well as arthritis in both knees. I was already excercisng, so I decided to switch to aquatic therapy while I was there. I found that there were a lot of exercises for water therapy on the web.

I wanted to do water therapy because I knew that it would allow me to exercise without much impact on my knees. The buoyancy and water pressure helped support the weight of my body and the density of the water caused resistance which allowed me to strengthen my muscles without using weights. The pressure of the water came from all around me; that helped my brain coordinate the position and movement of my limbs and torso and improved my balance.

In the summer the solar heating kept the water temp right around 91 degrees during the day. This heat was great for my parkinson's stiffness and relieved a lot of the joint swelling which helped to relieve my arthritis pain. During the summer I went into the water to excercise at least 2 times a day and felt no effects of over-exercise. I did my flexibilty exercises along the wall of the pool and balanced myself when floating on my back in a corner of the pool.

The warmth of the water during water therapy assists in relaxing muscles and opens vessels increasing blood flow to injured areas. Patients with muscle spasms, back pain and fibromyalgia find this very therapeutic.

If you are using an outdoor pool in the southern United States be sure to wear plenty of sun blocker. Get your doctor's approval before starting water therapy as there are situations where it might be contra-indicated. If you can and may try water therapy, try it. It's fun, it's relaxing and it's exercise.

Excercises and information about water therapy:
http://www.squidoo.com/AerobicsWater-Aquatic-Routines-Excercises