Bicycling can be a breeze for Parkinson's patients

Copied from The Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation Weekly News Update

Scott Goldberg

KARE11.com - On the web site for the New England Journal of Medicine, there is one of those videos that makes people talk.

In the video, a 58-year-old Dutch man with Parkinson's disease is seen shaking so badly he can't walk.

But then the man hops on a bicycle and rides it effortlessly. He pedals smoothly, rides through a U-turn, and then hops off.

As soon as he dismounts, he freezes. He looks as if he could ride the bike for miles, if he wanted to. But he can't take a single step.

"It is fascinating,"

said Dr. Martha Nance, the medical director at Park Nicollet's Struthers Parkinson's Center in Golden Valley.

Nance has seen something like the video before. One of her patients, whom she diagnosed with Parkinson's more than a decade ago, is an avid skier.

"She has aggressively gone out, (and) she continues to ski," Nance said. "It's now 12 years later, and she's still skiing."

Doctors can't say for sure what's behind these stories.

Perhaps the best explanation is that Parkinson's, the neurological disorder that kills some of the brain cells that control movement, only affects certain parts of the brain.

Hands or feet might twitch uncontrollably, but pedaling - or skiing around moguls, for that matter - is a motion controlled from a different place.

"Some patients can use music to get themselves moving," Nance said. "Some people can use marching steps to get themselves moving when they can't walk. So there are a variety of techniques that we can use to help turn on a bigger part of the brain."

Nance and other doctors aren't about to prescribe bicycling as a treatment for Parkinson's, but they say patients should exercise however they're able.

If nothing else, that video proves there can be quality in a life that's been slowed by a cruel disease.

Note by John Pepper:

As I have already said in the other article on cycling, when I use my conscious brain to control any action, such as walking or bringing food to my mouth, or handwriting, I focus my mind on the ‘action’ I don’t try and rely on my subconscious brain to control those actions.

The subconscious brain is not a different area of the brain but the messages emanating from it seem to pass through a different part of the brain