S G BRAIN GYM WITH PEOPLE - Brain Works Global Gym - Parkinsons.pdf · S G BRAIN GYM WITH PEOPLE HO HAVE PARKINSON'S DISEASE Can Brain Gym help my speech?" This was the question ...

JoAnna Shaw

CONSONANTS CLEARlY, A D

UNDERSTOOD EVERY WORD.

THE FOURTH SESSIO : 9/6/06, 10 - 11:30 A.M.Bill chose to work on his voice today.Pre- _. _ . He lOId me a story about his dog, and demon-

howl when Bill would hit high notescblriJJlet.His voice was breathy, his conso-

i difficult to understand him. Hisdido't like the sound of his voice.

He also p. his clarinet. It was hard for him to produce asound, and there was no discernible melody. It sounded morelike playing a scale to warm up.

Learning Menu: Spinal Walking*, Navel Radiation*, andMovement Reeducation* on feet and calves. His focus was torelax the tendon guard reflex*.

Post-activity: Bill told me the same story about his dog. Thistime he enunciated his consonants clearly, and I understoodevery word. There was breath supporting his words. His eyes litup as he noticed the difference. He reported that the internalsound was still not to his liking, although the external soundwas significantly different.

Compared to the conclusions of our prior balances, in whichhis voice had become progressively less audible, for him tohave a strong voice at the end of the balance was a big shift.Then Bill played his clarinet. It seemed difficult until he took asip of water, then the music started to flow. He played "It Hadto Be You" and smiled at his accompli hment. It was verysweet. I felt serenaded.

During this session we played with the Energy Bal1 (a toywith a battery that

THIS TIME HE ENUNCIATED HIS lights up and makesa siren sound whentwo metal conduc-tors are touched,available from most

stores that sell science-based toys). In the three prior sessions,he had not been able to get it to light up and make a sound.After sipping about half a glass of water, this time he was finallyable to get the ball to light up and make its sound. Again he waslearning something about the importance of sipping water forconducting the electrical energy in his body, and especial1y hisbrain.

Besides playing his clarinet, Bill's homeplay was to do thefol1owing self-help activities that emphasize relaxation of thetendon guard reflex: the Foot Flex, the Owl, the Energy Yawn,Bel1y Breathing, and a variation of the Energizer.

reversed. (His diaphragm would contract rather than relax whenhe breathed in.) I learned that he played the clarinet, and stillhad one in his room. So playing his clarinet became Bill's per-fect homeplay in order to practice his breathing. He was also tosip water through a Krazy Straw, a device that reeducates thesucking reflex.

I trained Bill's caregivers to assist him with his Brain Gymhomeplay. The following are excerpts from the notes that Imade during the fourth balance session, when Bill's voice cameforward.

S G BRAIN GYM WITH PEOPLE

HO HAVE PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Can Brain Gym help my speech?" This was the questionposed to me by an elder in a local retirement community.Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the

central nervous system that often impairs the subject's motorkills and speech. Bill had been diagnosed with the disease thir-een years before, and he had other health challenges that

required him to receive twenty-four-hour professional care.Bill had heard about Brain Gym@through his leadership role

on the resident council that approved expenditures withinretirement community. Seeking to train caregivers and

tial assistants in the B .program. with a goal 0

ing falls. I had recenpresentation to the adJi11iIristrators. Bill had recei\ one ofmy brochures and a copy of aBrain Gym- Journal' enti-tled "Lifelong Leaming- (July2005, Volume XIX, o. _) forhis review.

Brain Gym, like theEducational Kinesiology sys-tem of which it is a part, is amovement -based educational

model. Its instructors and consultants do not diagnose, treat, orattempt to cure any medical condition. We seek to support indi-viduals in noticing the correlation between their goals (orabsence of goals) and their daily patterns of movement.Through a five-step balance process, we help them learn new,more effective patterns of movement.

Bill asked to meet with me to explore whether Brain Gymcould help him regain his vocal tone and enunciation. He hadcompleted a series of physical and speech therapies, but wasstill struggling to be heard and understood. Parkinson's canaffect swallowing, and hence the speech, as it progresses, andBill had been told that there was nothing more to be done. So~Can Brain Gym help my speech?" was his first question to me,translated by his caregiver.

As I am careful not to make promises I can't keep, my answero Bill was, "I don't know. Many people have been able to reach

physical and mental goals with Brain Gym. I don't know if itwill help you unless we give it a try. One key to success is that• au be able to do your homeplay* activities every day, to rein-orce the balances we'll do. It will help if I can train your care-

_' -ers to help you with the homeplay."Bill committed to try out Brain Gym for a few sessions to see

how it would go. For his first half-dozen balances, we met onceand sometimes twice a week. In those initial balances, Billnoticed he was quite dehydrated and that his breathing was

/0 Anna Shaw, Oregon, U.S.A.

BRAIN GYM JOURNAL - MARCH 2008

HAPPY DEVELOPMENTSAfter sixteen meetings over a period of LX months, Bill

wrote a nice testimonial letter in support of the retirement centertraining caregivers and residential - istants in Brain Gym. Inhis letter, Bill said, "I have worked bard in this program. It basimproved my speaking, strength. am <pJalityof life. I recommend it."

As a result of our work. I giYen a contract to train eightcertified nurse's assistan and residential aides in the healthcenter (the nursing home Bill was in) and four caregivers in thespecial care center (the secured facility for elders with demen-tia and Alzheimer. ).

It was about a year ago that Bill did his last balance with me.I have stayed in h with him through this past year, and amglad to say that he and his caregivers are doing well in sustain-ing the progress he achieved.

In the meantime, word of our work, and the work of the staffmembers who took Brain Gym@ 101 with me in January of200 . spread within the community. Bill gave me approval totell his tory so he could continue to help others, something hehas been doing all his life. I am grateful for his courage toexplore the work, and for the doors that opened as a result ofhis leadership and support.

A NEW GROUP OF PARKINSON'S PATIENTS

BECOMES INTERESTED IN BRAIN GYMBill's story inspired curiosity in about 25 percent of the other

SOPSG members. They felt motivated to explore whether they,too, could find relief and hope. Prior to hearing about Bill'saccomplishments, they'd had only the dire prognosis of contin-ued deterioration, increasing medications with complicatedside effects, and a new surgical procedure called deep brainstimulation (DBS) as the only possible solution to control thesymptoms of this debilitating disease.

In the spring of 2007, the head of the Southern OregonParkinson's Support Group (SOPSG), a resident of the sameretirement community as Bill, was talking with one of theadministrators. He had heard what happened for Bill, alongwith other stories that were circulating about residents whosecaregivers had used Brain Gym to assist them with dressing,walking, transferring from a bed to a chair, or participating in agroup exercise program.

And so it happened that, a few days after my presentation tothe SOPSG, I was invited to work with those members whowanted to experience the Brain Gym work for themselves. Theywanted to see if Brain Gym balances could improve the qualityof life of those living with Parkinson's disease.

I said that I could work with up to sixteen members, and rec-ommended that these individuals and their caregivers beginwith a twelve-hour workshop. In this workshop, I would intro-duce them to Brain Gym, explain why and how to do someBrain Gym homeplay, and talk about the value of the private-session process known as the Edu-K in Depth balance*. At theend, those individuals with Parkinson's diagnoses would begiven an opportunity to enroll in a six-month series often Edu-Kin Depth balances. (Again, I considered caregiver participation

to be important, since the caregivers would playa pivotal rolein the success of those members using Brain Gym at home.)The workshop was structured as four three-hour days within aone-week time frame. I would be assisted by three of my previ-ous Brain Gym students, who would provide to the participantsany needed help with the movements.

Fifteen people started the program, and ten completed it. Theages of the participants ranged from sixty-five to ninety, andeach person completed a self-assessment before and after theirseries of individual balances. In their initial balance, I askedthem to rate themselves on a scale of I to 10, noticing the followingcategories that we used as a baseline for measuring change:breathing, physical balance, mental balance, emotional balance,reading, writing, seeing, hearing, speaking, memory, focus,quality oflife, physical mobility, measures of Parkinson's symp-toms (tremors, dyskinesia or distortion in performing voluntarymovements, "freezing," rigidity), and measures of self-maintenanceability (toileting, eating, dressing, grooming, and bathing).

The designations of "poor," "many," and "dependent" wereon the I end of the scale, and "excellent," "none," and "inde-pendent" were on the 10 end. At the conclusion of the program,we measured the changes from before to after and the amountof change in each category for each individual was tallied.Those with a cumulative change greater than 20 (four people)were considered as having made significant improvements,those who scored between 10 and 20 (five people) were con-sidered as having made moderate improvements, and thosewith a cumulative change between I and 10 (one person) wereconsidered as having made some improvements.

This is a tally of the participants' self-assessments of theirchanges in twenty-two categories:

• The greatest overall reported gains were in breathing andmental balance, with a cumulative score of more thantwenty in each of these categories

• The second greatest gains were in physical balance, emo-tional balance, writing, quality of life, tremors, "freezing,"rigidity, and physical mobility, with a cumulative scorebetween ten and twenty in each of these categories

• The third greatest gains were in the areas of reading, see-ing, hearing, speaking, memory, focus, dyskinesia, andself-maintenance, with a cumulative score between minusone (in dyskinesia) and ten in each of these categories

THE INDIVIDUAL BALANCESI approached each session using the protocol of the Edu-K in

Depth balance. Each participant established an overall goal forthe series as well as a specific goal for each balance. I usedmuscle checking* (the muscle indicators for the ThreeDimensions*) to help the participants notice how different pre-and post-activities* would affect their muscle balance and howchoosing activities from a learning menu* and doing BrainGym homeplay would help them create and sustain bilateralmuscle balance. These elders were learning how their thoughts,

BRAIN GYM JOURNAL - MARCH 2008 9

feelings, and physical sensations differed depending on theirfocus. This was helpful to them as, at the start of the program,many had encountered difficulty accessing the self-awarenessrequired for noticing.

In the pre- and post-activities and learning menu, I taughtabout differentiating the Puppet (one-sided or homolateral)movement from the Cross Crawl (contralateral) movement.Here they learned about relaxing their reflex into one-sidedmovement (arm and leg automatically move at the same time onthe same side of the body) so that their contralateral core pos-tural movement pattern might be restored and active when theychose to walk, write, read, or use other life skills. Every partic-ipant preferred the Puppet movement when starting the pro-gram and when under stress. Again, the muscle checkinghelped them learn about relaxing muscles for the Puppe IDO\'e-ment and activating muscles for the Cross Crawl.

I noticed that many of the participants' automatic movemenwere similar to the developmental reflexes I see in children andadults with learning and other stress-related challenges, exceptmore pronounced. In particular, these participants often had ahigh degree of reactivity between the movements of their eyesand of their body (a developmental reflex known as the asym-metrical tonic neck reflex or ATNR). When I would ask some-one to follow the movement of an object with her eyes, it wasnot unusual for her arm or leg to follow the same path.

In most balances, the learning menu included DennisonLaterality Repatterning, Three-Dimension Repatterning*,Homolateral Reflex Repatterning*, or Total CoreRepatterning*. NavelRadiation* before THESE ELDERS WERE LEARNING

repatterning also HOW THEIR THOUGHTS,proved a helpfullearning menu item. FEELINGS, AND PHYSICALIn my experience therepatteming processes, SENSATIONS DIFFERED

unique to Brain DEPENDING ON THEIR FOCUS.Gym@ and Edu-K,have the greatest success in allowing the movement of the eyesto differentiate from the movement of the body and letting lesseffort be used in such activities as reading, writing, and walk-ing. Those who experienced some degree of this differentiationafter several balances that included repatterning were the sameindividuals who seemed to make the best progress toward their goals.

At the start of each session, we would explore through mus-cle checking how well, after doing their homeplay, the partici-pants could sustain relaxed muscles for the Puppet movementand looking at parallel lines and active muscles for the CrossCrawl and looking at an X.

One thing that I explained in the very beginning was that,when we do a balance, all parts of the brain begin to cooperate.This means that the various areas of the brain (for thinking,feeling, action, and so on) can function more effectively as aunit. Generally, patterns in pre-activities show an imbalancetoward thinking too much or reflexive action, with little con-nection to feelings. So those who allow their feelings to come

up in the balance process are (and were, among these partici-pants) the most successful in achieving their goals.

POSITIVE FEEDBACKMany heartwarming testimonials came from the SOPSG

project. Even during the introductory workshop, many care-givers said that they noticed changes in the walking gait of theirloved ones. Some participants who had shuffled their feet andwalked as if falling forward began picking up their feet andtransferring their weight from one foot to the other.

One caregiver called me to say, "Tom would not be walkingtoday without your program." Tom had been completelydependent for all of his self-care needs. Before the Brain Gymprogram. he couldn't lift his arm more than an inch on his own.After a fe\\' sesSlODS.be was walking, dressing himself, feeding

the garbage!One described as "debilitating fatigue"

before the progralIIl. HeI' energy level was so low that she wasunable to spend m time with friends as she would haveliked. She strug ed to _ her hair in the morning, and had touse a wheelchair to hop. Ye her energy began to shift from thefirst day of the "Introduction to Brain Gym" workshop. At theend of the workshop she spoke up, saying, "I was a skeptic."She told the story of how hard it had been to dry her hair andhow this had changed after the first day of the workshop. In herlast balance session, she shared how she had recently walkedthrough the Colorado Airport without a wheelchair and how shecould now enjoy shopping at Macy's with a friend.

LAVONA'S STORYAnother participant, LaVona, experienced such significant

changes that she actually assisted in the second twelve-hourBrain Gym workshop that I gave for the SOPSG Phase 2 group.LaVona has recommended Brain Gym to other people in hercommunity who have a Parkinson's diagnosis. She wrote a tes-timonialletter about what she had noticed in herself and others,and told me she would be happy to have her name, as well asexcerpts from her letter, used in this article.

I was a participant in the Brain Gym sessions for Parkinson spatients and their caregivers. The first day. I saw expressions ofhelplessness and depression. The second day. frowns werereplaced by smiles. Patients who could not talk the day beforebegan talking. A patient who could not lift his arms withouthelp was lifting his arms by himself. Patients were feeling pos-itive effects from Brain Gym. A cheerful ftelingfilled the room.

We set goals on the second day. Parkinson s had affected myhandwriting. and I wanted to be able to write larger and morelegibly. On that very day. my handwriting improved. I have con-tinued having private Brain Gym sessions with 10 Anna. Someof my goals have been:

1. More energy and endurance so I could accomplishmore at home

2. More ability to comprehend directions3. The ability to relax4. More physical balance5. An improved posture

10 BRAIN GYM JOURNAL - MARCH 2008

Jo Anna (right) and La rima formeda good working relationship.

I have progressed in all of these goals .. \(v endurance andenergy level has so improved thai Fill 1101 completely ahaustedwhen the clock shows L:30 p .••. Even though Fm slcJl\; Iaccomplish much more in lilY Itome. I also walk, garden. andhelp care for our yard. DoiItg Bruin Gym has enabled me 10

function much better thall I ill the past.Following directions is . ~ easier. My understanding is

improving, along l\ . ~: My ability to relax is alsogetting better. HOl\. that is!

My balanceimproved. Iup and dOl\I also crand

e noticedpositive

dumges within->'Self as I have.vrked towards my goals. I have a long ways to go before mygoals are completely reached. But I'm excited about my progress.

I have learned that through our lives we establish patterns ofbehavior in our brains. These patterns influence our physicaland mental health, however the negative behavior patterns canbe changed. They can be replaced with positive, healthy patternsthat will make our lives healthier, happier, and more productive.

A Sample of LaVona's Handwriting in October 2006,Before the Brain Gym Workshop

La Vona's Handwriting After the Brain Gym Workshopand Several Balances

As I write this article, three months after the end of LaVona'sSOPSG Brain Gym program, I can report to you that she hasbeen able to sustain her gains by doing her Brain Gym home-play every day.

THE hE E TS OF SUCCESSThe successful results achieved by the Parkinson's support

group participants were an outgrowth of their own desire andability to learn about their mind-body relationship and to growthrough the balance process. Educational Kinesiology was newto them. Yet, with a leap of faith many were inspired enough tosign up for the program.

In my introductory comments, I invited workshop partici-pants to play with the activities and to detach from wanting tochange their Parkinson's symptoms. I also followed the draw-ing-out concept, saying, "Are you open to the possibility thatyour prognosis might change? The mind is a very powerfulforce in this process. If you believe you can or you can't, youare right."

Many of them had previously surrendered to the "fate" theysaw others experience. Many had stopped setting goals, and Iencouraged them to choose a life-skill goal that they couldmove toward.

There is a tendency to attribute the successes people achievein Brain Gym to the learning menu activities they used. And,truly, repatterning did contribute much to these folks' success.Yet their inspiration, their intention to find purpose in their life,their willingness to show up for weekly or bi-weekly sessions,to stick out the tough times when feelings and memories cameup, and to do the homeplay activities also greatly contributed totheir success.

There are Brain Gym~ Instructors all over the world, andsome in your own area will have a wealth of experience work-ing with adults and children who had a variety of goals and avariety of physical, mental, and emotional challenges. Go towww.braingym.org to fmd an instructor or consultant in yourarea. I encourage you to call and interview them to determineif they have experience in helping people with similar chal-lenges and goals to your own.

I gratefully acknowledge those who invested their time, facil-ities, and money in this program. I give thanks to those withwhom I had the pleasure and honor to facilitate balances. Theywere as much my teachers as I was theirs. May the work we didtogether bless the lives of many others, as well.

Jo Anna Shaw has been a licensed Brain Gym@instructor, anIntention Mapping70 coach. and a workshop facilitator since1993. She has a masters degree in business, and has been rec-ognized by Brain Gym@ International with the OutstandingAchievement Award for her contributions to the field ofEducational Kinesiology. Jo Anna facilitates private sessionsand workshops in Jacksonville, Southern Oregon, and has awebsite at <www.masteryconsulting.com>. She can be reachedby email at<[email protected]>. and by tele-phone at (541) 899-4447 ..•.

BRAIN GYM JOURNAL - MARCH 2008 II