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Abigail Sandifer

English Composition 2

20 March 2022

Literature review:

The second most common disease in neurodegenerative diseases among older adults is

Parkinson’s Disease. The first, of course is dementia but, coming close with the rise of Parkinson

patients being diagnosed. Most commonly in men from ages 40’s to 60’s but women are also

able to be diagnosed. Parkinson’s slows down you function of movement. Slowing down your

brains ability to move information from your brain to legs or feet, like walking. Watching your

love one not be able to move as quickly or continue to move is devastating. Moving you fingers

and hand to just grab a drink can be a struggle. Parkinson affects a lot more than just movement

of your fingers and toes that leads to more hardship.

Kelli Reiling Ott and Sherry Kolodziejczak wrote an article about Parkinson’s Disease.

The article is called “Occupational Therapy Interventions for People with Parkinson’s Disease”.

They specifically talk about Occupation therapy for Parkinson’s patients. Explaining the

engagement and how physical therapy can help slow own the process of Parkinson’s patients’

progression and help their health in the long run. The women explain the age of which man and

women get this unfortunately disease. Talking about the findings of physical therapist keeping

the patients social, home life, and mobility can be extremely helpful. Using a specific patient and

explaining how he modified his life to help him improve daily task as they continue to get harder

with the normal way. The little things in his life will get harder as the disease progresses.
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In Johns, the patient’s social life he rearranged it by using community-based classes that

is virtually. Unfortunately, this was during the beginning of the pandemic where things were

stricter. The home modification that John and his wife made were not dramatic but making

changes to help him in the future having this disease. Like moving furniture around to create

space, removing rugs from the ground to prevent tripping, and place nonslip strips in the house to

help John not slip. The last thing is mobility like doing little things to help john not fall when

outside the house. Keeping him safe is the number one priority. All credible information Ott and

Kolodziejczak talk about in the article.

Laura Beil created an article about the pathways Parkinson’s patients can take.

(Parkinson’s Pathways: Research begin to explore the guts link to this brain disease) She writes

this article about a specific patient and his family, the pathway they took. Giving the background

of his marriage and how they came together. John was 44 years old when diagnosed in

November 2002. His wife Carlin immediately started looking online and researching

Parkinson’s. She found an article that talked about digestion Beil give credits to the researchers

that found this topic. The topic states that there is relationship between Parkinson’s and digestive

systems.

Beil later states that people with Parkinson’s have digestive systems issues that come

earlier before people finding out that they have the disease. Her explanations of the pathway

from the brain to the guts of Parkinson’s patients. Parkinson usually starts in the gut or nose.

Like your sense of smell and/or having digestive issues are all pathways to having Parkinson’s.

Beil continues to talk about the missing nerve connection and the clumps of proteins that are a

prime example of Parkinson’s symptoms in the early stages. Giving a visual in the article of a

Parkinson’s patient brain through the stomach helping the reader understand better of what she is
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wanting to get across. Laura Beil has over 20 years of experience in health science. She has

received medical journalist awards for two journalist associations. She even has her own podcast

talking about called Dr. Death, it’s about medical injuries that have happened over the years.

Balance is probably the number one thing Parkinson’s Patients struggle with. Not being

about to move quick enough can cause some falling which leads then to get hurt. To prevent

those fails R. Mended da costa and some other Brazil coworkers worked together to create

methods to help Parkinson patients with there balance. When introducing the methods that the

group came up with and have tested, they state exercise shows to be essential for decreasing the

progression of Parkinson’s. Obviously, there is no cure for Parkinson’s, but you can slow down

the process. Exercise reduces motor symptoms like tremors and non-mote symptoms like

cognitive function in the brain. One of the methods they use a balance scale to determine the

agility and dynamic balance of the patients with Parkinson’s.

The writers go into detail about the berg balance and why physical therapist and doctors

use this scale when working with Parkinson’s patients. They do use this scale for many other

diagnoses but for this case they use it for Parkinson’s. They use tables to help show the

characteristics being used in the method and results of the trail. The two studies or trails use two

different ways to help the patients improve in the berg balance scale. One using Pilate’s training

and the other using yoga. R. Mended giving this information can help a lot of people with or

without someone with Parkinson’s in their life can help explain why getting them out and

moving can be beneficial.

The neurology department, faculty of medicine, and Alaaddin Keykubat University

located in Turkey wrote an article about the association between motor and nonmotor symptoms.

The author Seyda Cankaya gives a great explanation of both nonmotor and motor symptoms by
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listing the symptom in paragraph form. The article talks about the tremors which is motor

symptom and sleep abnormalities would be an example of nonmotor symptoms that Parkinson’s

patients are known for. The article gives tables of samples comprised of several patients with

Parkinson’s with the main characteristics of this disease. The second table gives more of the

characteristics of the motor and nonmotor symptoms such as Anxious mood, cognitive

impairment, fatigue, light headedness, and daytime sleep. These characteristics are all systems of

Parkinson’s patients that they can or do have, weather they know it or not. At the end of the

article the list the top non motor systems that were found in the study to be the top symptoms the

patient seemed to be having. The pain and other sensations were number on with the 84 percent

average. The second most common was daytime sleepiness with 78 percent. The final was the

article stated was urinary problems with 76 percent had been defined as the most common. This

article gave great information and statistics all from this past year.

The final piece of information is a video from a doctor of the name Rachel Dohlan. She is

the vice president of medical communications of the Michael J. Fox foundation of Parkinson’s

Disease. She also is a movement specialist. As she narrates the video, she gives great statistics

like how 60,000 people are diagnosed with Parkinson’s each year. She also states the fact of the

amount of people living with Parkinson’s in the Unites states ranges from 600,000 to 1 million

people. As you grow older you are more likely to Parkinson’s which makes sense because of the

symptoms listed previously. She continues to talk giving a great visual through the video being

played. She states that “If you have met someone with Parkinson’s disease then you have only

met one person.” They all have different symptoms, but they do have one thing in common. She

explains everyone’s brain produces dopamine but for Parkinson’s patient those dopamine cells

start to die. Dopamine is cell that makes you want to move and help you feel gratification from
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doing so. But when those cells start to die so does your movement. This is also why patients with

Parkinson’s get depressed easy. Now this video is only five minutes long and this is not all the

information given in the video. She does a great job of making the definition of Parkinson’s

easier to understand from someone not diagnosed, living or knowing someone, or being in the

medical field understand what Parkinson’s entail.

In Conclusion, using physical therapy and other ways to keep Parkinson’s patient moving

is best way. Sadly, there is no cure for this disease so using physical therapist and doing what

you can at home is the best medicine for these patients. Balance is obviously a big part for

Parkinson’s patients which the therapist can help with using the berg balance. This is a hardship

in the patients ’everyday lives. Using the previous resources and having them show you, the

reader data to help you or your loved one stay active is the best way to tackle this disease.
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Works Cited:

Ott, Kelli Reiling, and Sherry Kolodziejczak. “Occupational Therapy Interventions for People

with Parkinson’s Disease.” American Journal of Occupational Therapy, vol. 76, no. 1,

Jan. 2022, pp. 1–5. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=edo&AN=154870186&site=eds-live.

Beil, Laura. “Parkinson’s Pathways.” Science News, vol. 194, no. 11, Dec. 2018, pp. 22–

26. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=c9h&AN=133128206&site=eds-live.

Foundation, Micheal J. Fox, director. What Is Parkinson's Disease?, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRLB7WqX0fU . Accessed 2 Mar. 2022

Mendes da Costa, R., et al. “Contributions of Physical Exercise to Motor Symptoms and

the Balance of People with Parkinson’s Disease: A Systematic Review. / Contribuciones Del

Ejercicio Físico Para Los Síntomas Motores y El Equilibrio de Las Personas Con Enfermedad de

Parkinson: Una Revisión Sistemática.” Revista Andaluza de Medicina Del Deporte, vol. 13, no.

4, Dec. 2020, pp. 235–40. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=s3h&AN=147355247&site=eds-live

Höglund, A., et al. “Associations Between Fluctuations in Daytime Sleepiness and Motor and

Non-Motor Symptoms in Parkinson’s Disease.” Movement Disorders Clinical Practice,

vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 2021, pp. 44–50. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1002/mdc3.13102.

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