There's no cure for the progressive, neurodegenerative Parkinson’s disease, but physical training is an effective treatment, as Rich Gingras, founder of The Parkinson’s Place in Pawtucket, discovered years ago.
Parkinson’s disease causes neurons in the brain that produce the chemical messenger dopamine to gradually die, initially causing slight tremors in the limbs, and commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement. The disease can also cause difficulty with unconscious movements, including blinking, smiling, speaking and writing, or moving your arms while walking.
Gingras, a retired boxer, has been helping Parkinson’s patients stave off and work around those symptoms for seven years. He says he discovered the approach when a man, a Parkinson’s patient, walked through his door and asked for help.
Gingras, who didn’t have any medical education and knew little of the disease, started training with the man, and his doctors started noticing.
“All of a sudden, the doctors started looking at me like I was a genius because I was doing things they couldn’t figure out,” Gingras said.
Usually, he said, doctors treating Parkinson’s patients are prepared to document physical decline. Not only were Gingras’ clients not declining, some were improving.
“At first, I didn’t really understand what I was doing that was so different,” Gingras said. It was a riddle he eventually figured out: his training helped people focus on complicated movements as individual pieces, in effect rationing the amount of dopamine someone uses at any one time.
“We know that exercise helps slow down the progression of Parkinson’s,” said Mary Ellen Thibodeau, registered nurse and coordinator of the Parkinson’s Information and Referral Center at Kent Hospital, as well as coordinator of the Rhode Island chapter of the American Parkinson’s Disease Association at the hospital. About 2,700 people living with Parkinson’s disease are members of RIAPDA, she said.
Thibodeau said she learned about the success of Gingras’ approach and offered to refer patients to him if he became certified.
Gingras was the first in Rhode Island to start a business offering boxing training as physical therapy for Parkinson’s, she said.
Rock Steady Boxing, a national organization that pioneered boxing as a Parkinson’s disease therapy, was founded in 2006 by Scott C. Newman, a former Indiana prosecutor living with Parkinson’s, according to the organization’s website. When Thibodeau learned of Gingras’ program, she saw an opportunity to bring Rock Steady Boxing to the Ocean State. “I had seen it and wanted it in Rhode Island,” she said.
Since Gringras opened Parkinson’s Place and became affiliated with Rock Steady, three other gyms have begun offering boxing therapy for Parkinson’s disease under the Rock Steady affiliation, Thibodeau said. There’s Icon, run by Jesse “The Bull” Ameralo, also a former boxer, at 15 Gooding Ave. in Bristol; Striking Beauties at 1375 Park Ave. #4 in Cranston; and the South County YMCA at 165 Broad Rock Road in South Kingstown.
While boxing classes are effective, they also provide intangible benefits. “It’s also about leadership, camaraderie, a place where they don’t feel different,” said Carolyn Kosiba-Quiterio, senior health and wellness director at the South County YMCA and coordinator of its boxing Parkinson’s therapy program.
‘We know that exercise helps slow down the progression of Parkinson’s.’
MARY ELLEN THIBODEAU, Kent Hospital Parkinson’s Referral Center coordinator
Kosiba-Quiterio said people don’t realize that Parkinson’s can be managed with success throughout a person’s life, as with many other chronic, long-term diseases.
“When I talk to them [new Parkinson’s patients], I kind of remind them that it’s like diabetes,” Kosiba-Quiterio said. Regular activity, such as boxing training, can be a significant advantage in managing Parkinson’s disease, she said. She said one member of the program, diagnosed in his late 40s, maintained a very active lifestyle well into his 70s.
Gingras opened Parkinson’s Place, a gym dedicated to helping Parkinson’s patients learn his approach to maintaining a baseline of physical fitness, just over a year ago. He has 74 active members with Parkinson’s or active neural disorders.
Maintaining an active lifestyle is essential to helping people manage their symptoms throughout their lives.
“Basically, anything we think the person is going to keep doing” can work as useful therapy, Kosiba-Quiterio said.
It doesn’t matter what kind of exercise, said Anne-Marie Dupre, clinical assistant professor and assistant director of clinical education at University of Rhode Island’s Department of Physical Therapy. It just has to be regular, ideally every day.
“If you move and you take your meds, you can slow down that progression,” Dupre said, adding boxing therapy has helped some Parkinson’s patients get off their medications.
Business at Parkinson’s Place is good, Gingras said. In the immediate future, he hopes to become certified with the state, so his services will qualify for health insurance reimbursements.
