Tai Chi Helping Parkinson's Patients to Walk

By Kai Colvin - Senior Medical Research Editor | April 23rd, 2012

Parkinson's is a progressive motor-system disorder that affects more one million individuals around the globe.

Without a known cure—the adverse effects and symptoms of PD on our loved ones can be a central endeavor of stress.

Tai Chi may be a calming, receptive solution and one step closer to finding relief and security for PD patients.

What is Tai Chi? Tai Chi can be denoted as motion medication. There is mounting substantiation that this mind-body exercise regimen, which originated in China under martial arts, is increasingly creating value in treating or preventing many health concerns.

In this low-impact, slow-motion exercise, moving in motion and deep breathing allows for a calming meditation on bodily sensations.

How is Tai Chi different from the neurological exercises that are routinely recommended for Parkinson’s disease patients? Tai Chi movements are typically introduced in a circular motion and never forced, muscles are relaxed as opposed to tense, joints are not fully protracted, and connective tissues are not strained.

What makes Tai Chi significantly special is that any individual can adapt to it—from individuals confined to wheelchairs to patients recovering from complex surgical procedures.

Belief System

Qi is a potent energy force believed to flow through the body—Tai Chi has the potential to unblock and encourage this flow of energy.

Yin and Yang are the opposing elements believed to harmonize the world—Tai Chi vastly promotes this sense of balance.

When combined with customary medical treatment, Tai Chi has been found to help individuals with PD or arthritis ranging from mild to severe. Patients showed enhanced balance, greater walking capability, and overall advance in comfort levels.

Comfort advancement alone is certainly music to our ears.

At the Oregon Research Institute, a dedicated team assigned roughly 200 patients 60 minute Tai Chi sessions or 60 minute resistance-training and stretching sessions twice per week.

The Results— Patients who endured Tai Chi outpaced the stretching and resistance-training patients in terms of balance and length of walking stride. The Tai Chi patients also experienced fewer falls.

Lead author, Fuzhong Li stated, “These results are clinically significant because they suggest that Tai Chi, a low-to-moderate impact exercise, may be used, as an add-on to current physical therapies, to address some of the key clinical problems in Parkinson's disease.”

He further concluded that, “The improvements in the balance and gait measures that we demonstrated highlight the potential of tai chi-based movements in rehabilitating patients with these types of problems.”

Nerve cells are designed to regularly produce dopamine, cells which transmit signals within the brain to produce smooth movement of muscles. In Parkinson's disease patients, 80% or more of these cells are impaired or disintegrated. This disintegration leaves the nerve cells unable to control normal movements. Parkinson’s disease patients are also highly susceptible to diabetes.

Symptoms of PD:

-Tremors or trembling

-Rigidity or stiffness

-Slow movement

-Postural instability or impaired balance and coordination

To learn more about this and other neurology treatments, find a neurologist in your area.