Exercise and sleep in Parkinson’s

Hot off the research press is a journal article with a self-explanatory title: Effects of exercise on sleep in neurodegenerative disease.

It starts by summarising the main things that affect sleep in people with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases as being:

  1. damage to the sleep-wake system in the brain, that affects the circadian rhythm and disrupts normal sleeping and waking patterns; and
  2. “secondary mechanisms” which include a raft of things like medication side effects, having to get up to the toilet during the night, poor sleep “hygiene”, sleep-related breathing disorders, and the environment in which you try to sleep.
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Interest in Apathy – at last!

The more I observe people with Parkinson’s disease using photobiomodulation, the more astonishing and wonderful it is to see the positive effect of daily lights on the significant and debilitating symptom of apathy.

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Three days

Al has Parkinson’s and he started using a two-wavelength Duo Coronet in July last year, once daily in the morning.

I had an email from Al the other day, and I have his permission to quote his very interesting comments.

‘If I miss a day session, there is a gradual change in me. Bad dreams come back, my tolerance level goes way down and my lethargy goes way up.’

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Parkinson’s and apathy

Apathy is a prominent and nasty symptom of Parkinson’s disease. One researcher described it as “one of the most disabling” of all symptoms. Apathy can appear years before a diagnosis of Parkinson’s is made. At least a third of people with Parkinson’s will experience it and once it starts it never goes away. Apathy might look like depression but it is a very different symptom. Anti-depressant medication won’t help at all. Apathy relentlessly destroys all motivation and interest in life. Once present, there is no turning back because there is no treatment for apathy…

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South Australian PD study – early results

Twelve people in South Australia volunteered to participate in a study on the effect of near-infrared light on people with Parkinson’s disease.

Dr Liebert presented the findings of a preliminary analysis of the data to the study participants, their families and members of Parkinson’s South Australia on Tuesday 9 September 2019.

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