Soft Robotic Exosuit Could Help Those with Parkinson’s, a Stroke Patient Study Indicates

 AUGUST 4, 2017  BY PATRICIA INACIO, PHD IN NEWS.

A Harvard University-designed soft robotic exosuit that helped stroke patients walk better could do the same for Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis patients, those involved in creating and evaluating the prototype say.

The invention, which ReWalk Robotics is moving toward commercializing, promises to change the lives of patients with mobility impairments, the team says.

Patients with Parkinson’s disease may benefit from the soft robotic exosuit, Restore, as this was shown to improve mobility in patients who suffered a stroke.

Harvard published a study about the Restore exosuit in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The title was “A soft robotic exosuit improves walking in patients after stroke.”

Like those with Parkinson’s, stroke patients often require assistance devices, such as ankle-foot braces to  improve their mobility. But their “walking remains highly impaired despite—and perhaps because of—their use,” the researchers wrote.

Researchers from Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering teamed up with Boston University researchers to see how well an exosuit could help stroke patients walk.

They tested the prototype, which was created at the institute, on nine people who were in a crucial phase of stroke recovery. The testing occurred when the nine were walking outside or on a treadmill.

The exosuit reduced by 32 percent the amount of energy the patients had to expend on walking, the researchers said.

Dr. Conor Walsh, founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, said the study “shows that soft wearable robots can have significant positive impact on gait functions” of those who have had a stroke. He praised the “multidisciplinary team of engineers, designers, biomechanists, physical therapists and most importantly patients who volunteered for this study and gave valuable feedback that guided our research.

Walsh, who was the study’s co-lead author, is the John L. Loeb associate professor of engineering and applied sciences at the Wyss Institute.

ReWalk is working with the institute to develop movement-enhancing devices that can be tested in clinical trials. The first commercial application will be for stroke survivors. In the near future, devices will also be available for those with MS, the company said.

“Exoskeletons are now a commercially available, disruptive technology that have changed the lives of many individuals in the paraplegic community,” said ReWalk CEO Larry Jasinski. “The ongoing research at the Wyss Institute on soft exosuits adds a new dimension to exoskeletons that can potentially meet the needs of individuals that have had a stroke, as well as for those diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease or people who have limitations in walking.”

He said the Restore suit has “a unique lightweight design that can assist and constantly adjust in real time to the user’s needs on every step they take.” The invention shows how research can be applied to “the everyday needs of this patient community,” he added.

https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2017/08/04/stroke-survivor-study-suggests-exosuit-could-help-parkinsons-patients-walk-better/

Alumna to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, raise money for Parkinson’s research

August 4, 2017    Cassie Buchman, Staff Reporter

Lydia Pond takes a picture on Mt. Quandary in Colorado on one of her June training trips. Pond has been training to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in August, which she is doing to raise money for Parkinson's disease research.

Eastern alumna Lydia Pond (‘09,’10) is no stranger to new experiences.

According to former rugby teammate Katie Anderson, Lydia Pond joined Eastern’s team during her freshman year even though she had never played before.She’s also been climbing mountains since she was a junior at Eastern and took a group of students to Africa on a missions trip during her career at North Central College.

She’s also been climbing mountains since she was a junior at Eastern and took a group of students to Africa on a missions trip during her career at North Central College.

This summer, Pond gets another new opportunity as she climbs Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money for Parkinson’s disease research through the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Pond has been raising money through a fundraising page on the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s website and will leave for her trip on Aug. 4.

She said it is exciting, humbling and “kind of scary” to be one of 12 people making the trek.

However, she said the trip is not about herself, but her mother, Melsy. Melsy Pond was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1997, when Lydia was 10-years-old.

“For two-thirds of my life she’s had it,” Lydia Pond said. “It’s hard for me to remember a time in my life when she didn’t have it.”

One of the hardest things Lydia’s mom has had to deal with is going on disability from being a civil engineer, a career she had for decades.

“She had to give her her livelihood and part of her identity as a working mom and engineer,” Lydia said. “I think she probably had 15-20 years of engineering on her- but she can’t do it anymore.”

Though Melsy Pond is the kind of person who keeps to herself, according to her daughter, in years since she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, she’s done her best to help others with the disease.

Ever since she was diagnosed, Melsy has taken part in numerous research studies and goes to support groups for newly diagnosed patients to talk about her experience.

“They can see 20 years into the disease, she’s still functioning, she can walk, she can talk,” Lydia Pond said. “She silently gives people hope.”

Though Melsy is a little nervous about her daughter climbing the mountain, she is also excited. 

“My mom would probably love to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro but she physically can’t, so I’ll do it for her,” Lydia said.

To go on the climb, part of the requirement is raising $10,000.  Lydia met that goal in 5 days, with the help of her family, friends and co-workers though, her own personal goal is a little higher- $15,000.

People can still donate, even for a period of time after Lydia Pond actually climbs the mountain.

Through having people donate, Lydia Pond has been able to connect with friends who have also been directly affected by Parkinson’s disease, even when she hadn’t known they were dealing with it before.

“I’m very fortunate to know a lot of people and be friends with a lot of people,” she said. “I’m humbled and thankful people have taken the time donate to such a cause.”

To get ready for her trip, Pond has been working on finalizing everything, making sure she gets a new backpack and sleeping bag as well as other last-minute parts.

“I’ve been double checking every couple days, making sure my passport hasn’t disappeared,” she said.

In the past two months, Lydia Pond has gone to Colorado three times to train. Other than that, Pond said she is just trying to be outside and do as many different activities as she can.

The highest she has been before is 13,500 feet, compared to Mt. Kilimanjaro at 19,341 feet.

Along with taking plenty of layers of clothing, cameras, snacks and water bottles, she also always takes her brother’s hat with her when she travels, as he died five years ago in a motorcycle accident.

Though she is excited, Lydia Pond said she does not want to let the people who have been supporting her down.

She has not yet met all the people who will climb with her, though Lydia Pond said she is sure she will get to know them “really well” as they spend the 10 days together on the mountain.

Pond got her bachelor’s degree in recreation administration in 2009, then graduated with a master’s in sports administration in 2010. For seven years, she has been the director of the campus recreation program at North Central College in Naperville.

At Eastern, she worked at the Student Rec and was an intramurals graduate assistant.

She was also in the recreation administration honors society, Rho Phi Lambda.

Pond played rugby as a freshman and was a walk-on in tennis her junior year, before taking time during her senior year to focus on internships.

Pond’s love for mountain climbing started the summer after her junior at Eastern when she did an internship in Colorado when a professor suggested it to her. “That was my first experience in and around the Rocky Mountains,” she said.“Being in the mountains is a very surreal and spiritual experience.”

Pond’s former rugby teammate said she was “speechless” when Lydia told her she was going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“She has seen all 50 states and has been to several countries overseas, but this was still a surprise,” Anderson said. “ I knew that the journey between accepting the opportunity to go on the trip and actually climbing the mountain would take a lot of hard work but I felt very confident that if anyone was capable it was Lydia Pond.”

http://www.dailyeasternnews.com/2017/08/04/alumna-to-climb-mt-kilimanjaro-raise-money-for-parkinsons-research/

Cultivating a memory

August 5, 2017    By: Jared Anderson/Siuslaw News

The yard work was therapy. The immaculately kept flowers outside the home of Carol and Lance Blalock was a way for Lance to keep his dexterity up, diminished over the years from Parkinson’s disease. 

“For Parkinson’s patients, you need to keep moving. Once you stop that, it’s over,” Carol said. 

So Lance would kneel in the yard, hands gripped around the dandelions, his muscles remembering a sense of purpose. 

This, according to Carol, was when he was truly at peace. 

And then, on March 9, he passed away. 

Carol was devastated; they had been together for 37 years and it was too painful for her to do much of anything. 

The yard fell into disrepair. 

Plus, as she admitted, she’s terrible at gardening. 

“I just can’t tell what a weed is,” she admitted. “If it has a flower on it, I’m calling it a flower.”

On June 7, Sunni Days Yard Care put out a call to help a deserving veteran in the community. Owned by military spouse Sunni Perkins, the yard care service wanted to give back by donating free yard beautification to a local veteran. 

Perkins found the perfect candidate in Carol, saying, “It’s only fitting that we help a fellow military spouse in need.” 

And Carol was in need. 

“The yard, because of all the rain this year, was just a jungle,” she said.  

So Sunni Days came to the rescue, perfectly manicuring the hydrangea outside and trimming the yard with impeccable detail. 

Carol smiled as she looked over the work they had done.

“It’s really amazing, what they did,” she said.

The flowers were never Lance and Carol’s idea. When they moved to Florence a few years back, they purchased the home from local florist Bobbi Brubaker, who owned Flowers by Bobbi. 

Flowers were understandably rather prevalent in the yard, but the  Blalocks had no idea what to do with them. 

They were proud nomads before then, traversing the country in their RV as long as they had known each other. 

When they first met, Carol only had one question for Lance: Do you like to camp? 

“When I think back on it, we were on the road most of our lives. We were very fortunate, and that’s all thanks to him,” she said. 

One of Carol’s favorite stories is when they had taken a small boat out to an island. As they got on shore, the boat drifted. Lance, who had been an accomplished athlete when he was younger, jumped into the ocean and swam to bring it back. 

“He was my hero,” Carol remembered. “An athlete, a scholar and a gentleman. What else could you ask for?

“His biggest attribute was that he had a great sense of humor.” 

When they were first dating, Carol and Lance went to go see the Steve Martin film “The Jerk” 32 times together. 

As Martin did in the movie, Lance got himself a pair of aviation goggles and a scarf, putting them on to make his wife laugh. 

And he was always able to. 

But then in 2007 the Parkinson’s diagnosis came. 

The disease took small tolls at first; a tremor in a hand, stiff muscles. But as the years passed the symptoms became more pronounced. He would lose balance and bouts of confusion would set in. 

Traveling wasn’t as easy anymore, so they moved to Florence. And that’s when they were faced with the flowers. 

Lance saw it as a challenge. Carol took up acting classes, and Lance got to work on the yard. 

When he wasn’t watching the Denver Broncos or laughing at “The Big Bang Theory,” his favorite show, he was pulling weeds.

“He loved this house and being able to contribute to something,” Carol said. 

The Parkinson’s snuck up on them. Its devastating effects had, over the years, become routine. 

“He was falling quite a bit,” she said. “I didn’t notice because you’re with this for 24/7 and it just becomes normal. I caught him every time he would fall, and he would bounce back.”

“He was declining, and he knew it,” Carol remembered. “So the gardening gave him a sense of purpose.”

Carol is just now being able to talk about these things, the pain of the loss fading as the joyful memories remain. 

Of the work that Sunni Days did for Carol she said, “I know that he took pride in the yard and the house. I just think it’s a blessing that they’ve decided to do this for a veteran, that they selected me. Lance would have been so honored.” 

Carol is a woman of faith. 

After Lance passed away, she was looking for signs that he was still around. 

Everyone stays around a little while, she believed.

And she sees him everywhere. She sees his smile in the thousands of pictures that he left behind. She hears his voice in the birds outside on a cool summer morning.    

And she sees his love in the yard he left behind.

https://thesiuslawnews.com/article/cultivating-a-memory

Tracing the path of Parkinson's disease proteins

August 4, 2017

As neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease progress, misfolded proteins clump together in neurons, recruiting normal proteins in the cell to also misfold and aggregate. Cells in which this occurs degenerate and eventually die. Being able to keep an eye on the whereabouts of these corrupted proteins is key to unraveling these diseases and developing cures.

 team of researchers has now developed a set of tools to observe, monitor and quantify how misfolded proteins associated with Parkinson's disease enter neurons in laboratory cultures and what happens to them once they're inside. The results will be published in the Aug. 11 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Alpha-synuclein is a protein found in all neurons, where it is thought to be involved in regulating neurotransmitter release. Incorrectly folded alpha-synuclein sticks together, forming fibrous deposits called amyloid fibrils. These are the main components of Lewy bodies, the masses seen in the neurons of Parkinson's patients.

In 2011, Virginia Lee's group at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the University of Pennsylvania showed that if lab-produced alpha-synuclein fibrils were added to neurons growing in a dish, the neurons would develop Lewy bodies and display other symptoms of neurodegeneration. This study and others hinted that misfolded alpha-synuclein could spread from cell to cell, rather than forming anew in every individual cell. However, there was no way to directly observe the initial steps of alpha-synuclein fibrils entering cells.

"Our understanding of neurodegenerative disease—or even the normal function of the healthy brain, for that matter - is limited by the techniques we currently have at our disposal," said Richard Karpowicz Jr., a postdoc in Lee's lab who led the new study.

Karpowicz devised a simple but sensitive method to visualize alpha-synuclein fibrils entering cells. First, he cultured neurons and synthesized alpha-synuclein fibrils tagged with fluorescent proteins. Next, he put the cells and fluorescent fibrils in a dish together. Then he added a dye, called trypan blue, that turns off fluorescent tags. Importantly, this dye cannot pass through intact cell membranes, which means it cannot turn off tags that are already inside cells. Once he added the dye, the glowing fibrils outside of cells turned off, but the ones that had already entered the cell continued to glow, allowing him to visualize and count the internalized fibrils.

Furthermore, in collaboration with E. James Petersson's research group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, the researchers also developed fibrils labeled with long-lasting fluorescent tags that were either sensitive or insensitive to acidity. Based on whether the fluorescence was visible, the researchers could determine when the fibrils entered acidic compartments in the cell, allowing them to deduce the cellular processes that acted on the fibrils.

Using these methods, the team was able to gain several insights into the fate of fibrils entering cells. They found that fibrils were actively engulfed by the cell membrane and transported to the lysosomes, the cell's waste disposal compartment, where most of the fibrils remained for days. "It's amazing how much the cell is able to sequester," Karpowicz said. But despite the cells' best efforts, some fibrils found their way out of the lysosomes and induced protein aggregation.

When the researchers added chloroquine to the cells to inhibit lysosomal activity, more and more of the native alpha-synuclein was recruited to form aggregates. Lysosomal dysfunction is often observed in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. "We know that some of [the pathological proteins], somehow, get out of the lysosomes," Lee said. "But we don't know how that happens."

But being able to accurately quantify the amount of fibrils taken up will allow researchers to rapidly screen potential pharmacological compounds that could one day be used to stop the spread of the corrupted proteins in a patient. "Once you can look at [fibril] uptake into the cell, and quantify how much is inside the cell, then you can add small molecules to it to see if you can reduce uptake," Lee said. "It's really a simple assay and doesn't take very long." Karpowicz added that looking at genetic variation in these uptake pathways could provide hints as to why some people are more susceptible to the disease than others.

More information: Richard J. Karpowicz et al, Selective imaging of internalized proteopathic α-synuclein seeds in primary neurons reveals mechanistic insight into transmission of synucleinopathies, Journal of Biological Chemistry (2017).  DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M117.780296 

Journal reference: Journal of Biological Chemistry

Provided by: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-path-parkinson-disease-proteins.html

Israeli scientist develops early diagnostic test for Parkinson’s

By  ISRAEL21c Staff  AUGUST 3, 2017

Suaad Abd-Elhadi’s new assay could pave the way for early diagnosis and improved treatment of the debilitating neurodegenerative disorder.

Photo of immunosorbent assay by Maltsev Semion/Shutterstock.com

The exciting news coming out of Israel, that a scientist has developed a groundbreaking test to categorically detect Parkinson’s disease, is giving the medical and science worlds hope for the future.

Suaad Abd-Elhadi, a PhD student at the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Medicine, has developed the lipid ELISA diagnostic tool.

She won the Kaye Innovation Award for 2017 for the breakthrough invention of this highly sensitive kit that may lead to earlier detection of Parkinson’s disease, along with better tracking of the disease’s progression and a patient’s response to therapy.

Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder in humans, after Alzheimer’s disease. It is typically characterized by changes in motor control such as tremors and shaking, but can also include non-motor symptoms, from the cognitive to the behavioral.

An estimated seven to 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s disease, with medication costing approximately $2,500 a year, and therapeutic surgery costing up to $100,000 per patient.

Doctoral student and Kaye
 Innovation Award winner
 Suaad Abd-Elhadi.
 Photo courtesy of Hebrew University

Making an accurate diagnosis of Parkinson’s, particularly in early stages and mild cases, is difficult, and there are currently no standard diagnostic tests other than clinical information provided by the patient and the findings of a neurological exam.

Once Parkinson’s is revealed, the disease is usually already progressing.

“Earlier diagnosis can help by seeing how a given drug affects the progress of the disease, for example,” Abd-Elhadi told Haaretz.

“A big problem is that early PD looks just like other neurodegenerative diseases, which hinders appropriate care,” she explained. “A great deal of effort is presently being put into delaying the progress of PD, for which purpose one needs to know that one has it.”

ELISA biomarker

The global medical field has long noted that one of the best hopes for improving diagnosis is to develop a reliable test for identifying a biomarker — a substance whose presence would indicate the presence of the disease.

In the case of the lipid ELISA, the cellular secretion of interest is a specific protein called alpha-synuclein.

ELISA stands for “enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.” An assay is a procedure used in laboratory settings to assess the presence, amount and activity of a target entity, such as a drug, cell or biochemical substance. ELISA is a common assay technique that involves targeting cellular secretions.

The alpha-synuclein protein serves as a convenient biomarker that is closely associated with the tissues where Parkinson’s disease can be detected, along with the neurological pathways the disease travels along, causing its characteristic symptoms.

Abd-Elahdi’s diagnostic tool can detect this specific protein.

As a simple and highly sensitive diagnostic tool that can detect Parkinson’s biomarkers, the lipid ELISA could lead to a minimally invasive and cost-effective way to improve the lives of Parkinson’s patients, according to a Hebrew University statement.

Abd-Elhadi has already demonstrated a proof of concept and is now in the process of analyzing a large cohort of samples, including moderate and severe Parkinson’s and control cases, as part of a clinical study.

Through Yissum, its technology transfer company, the Hebrew University holds granted patents on the technology, and has signed an agreement with Integra Holdings for further development and commercialization.

Abd-Elhadi is earning her doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology. Under the supervision of Ronit Sharon, she conducts research that has been published in Scientific Reports and Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry.

https://www.israel21c.org/israeli-scientist-develops-early-diagnostic-test-for-parkinsons/

Southern Research names new neuroscience department head

Aug 3, 2017

In an effort to expand its neuroscience research and drug discovery into diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, Southern Research has named a new neuroscience department chair.

Rita Cowell was named the new department leader this week, coming to the nonprofit after 10 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where she was an associate professor in the psychiatry and behavioral neurobiology department. Cowell earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a doctorate in neuroscience from the University of Michigan.

Rita Cowell is the new head of Southern Research's neuroscience department.

Cowell’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. She is currently examining why people develop neurodegenerative diseases so that eventually researchers can find cures.

“Some of these disorders actually converge on similar pathways in the brain. Even though they look different on the outside, if you look at one region of the brain, the process at the cell level is actually very similar,” Cowell said. “The idea is that if we could understand what that process is, we could use one drug to target one set of symptoms that is common to these diseases.”

Cowell’s research has focused on how cellular pathways in the brain are disrupted in these diseases. Her work on Parkinson’s disease has been funded though a five-year grant from the NIH and support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation. She also has led research into other diseases such as Alzheimer's and schizophrenia.

“All these diseases have very characteristic symptoms. Someone will go into a clinic and they have a memory problem or they have a problem with uncontrolled movements,” she said. “What distinguishes these diseases and their symptoms from each other is the cell types in the brain that are dying.”

Cowell said Southern Research’s extensive drug discovery capacities will allow her to pursue her ultimate goal of developing a small-molecule drug that could prove useful against a wide range of neurological diseases.

Mark Suto, the vice president of Southern Research’s Drug Discovery division, said Cowell’s work on neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s, will provide a solid foundation to build on in the neuroscience department. 

“Rita’s extensive understanding of these debilitating neurological disorders will be instrumental in advancing our goal of discovering novel treatments for patients who desperately need help,” Suto said. “We believe that she is the ideal person to direct our neuroscience department as we strategically expand it over time into new areas of investigation that align with our drug discovery mission.”

https://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/news/2017/08/03/southern-research-names-new-neuroscience.html

Diabetes drug shows potential as disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson's disease

August 3, 2017

Immunohistochemistry for alpha-synuclein showing positive staining (brown) of an intraneural Lewy-body in the Substantia nigra in Parkinson's disease. Credit: Wikipedia

A drug commonly used to treat diabetes may have disease-modifying potential to treat Parkinson's disease, a new UCL-led study suggests, paving the way for further research to define its efficacy and safety.

The study, published in The Lancet and funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF), found that people with Parkinson's who injected themselves each week with exenatide for one year performed better in movement (motor) tests than those who injected a placebo.

"This is a very promising finding, as the drug holds potential to affect the course of the disease itself, and not merely the symptoms," said the study's senior author, Professor Tom Foltynie (UCL Institute of Neurology). "With existing treatments, we can relieve most of the symptoms for some years, but the disease continues to worsen."

The researchers followed 60 people with Parkinson's disease at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) as they used either a once-weekly injection of exenatide for 48 weeks, or a placebo, in addition to their regular medications.

They found that people who used exenatide had better motor function at 48 weeks when they came off the treatment, which persisted after the 12-week follow-up. Those who had injected the placebo showed a decline in their motor scores at both the 48- and 60-week tests. The advantage of 4 points, on a 132-point scale of measures such as tremors, agility and speech, was statistically significant.

The participants did not report noticeable improvements in their symptoms during the trial period beyond what their standard medication already did for them. They were tested while temporarily off all medication, to determine how the disease itself was progressing. The research did not determine conclusively whether the drug was modifying the disease itself, so the next stage in the research will investigate that more fully.

Parkinson's disease affects 1 in 500 people and is the second most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide. Symptoms typically don't become apparent until over 70% of the brain's dopamine-producing cells have been affected. The condition results in muscle stiffness, slowness of movement, tremors, sleep disturbance, chronic fatigue and an impaired quality of life.

The saliva of the Gila monster lizard provided the inspiration for the development of exenatide, which has been used since 2005 to treat Type 2 diabetes. It activates receptors for the GLP-1 hormone in the pancreas to stimulate insulin release. GLP-1 receptors are also found in the brain, and prior research has shown that activating them can boost the function of dopamine connections, act as an anti-inflammatory, improve energy production, and switch on cell survival signals. Further research by a team led by Professor Foltynie will seek to clarify how exenatide works for people with Parkinson's disease.

Prior evidence in animal models demonstrated that exenatide improved motor performance. Another study also found early evidence that it could be a disease-modifying agent for Parkinson's, but it was an open-label trial, so this latest study strengthens the existing evidence as the first randomised, placebo-controlled trial of the drug for Parkinson's patients.

"This is the strongest evidence we have so far that a drug could do more than provide symptom relief for Parkinson's disease," said Professor Foltynie.

"Using approved therapies for one condition to treat another, or drug repurposing, offers new avenues to speed Parkinson's therapeutic development," said Dr Brian Fiske, senior vice president of research programs at MJFF. "The results from the exenatide studies justify continued testing, but clinicians and patients are urged not to add exenatide to their regimens until more is known about their safety and impact on Parkinson's."

"While we are optimistic about the results of our trial, there is more investigation to be done, and it will be a number of years before a new treatment could be approved and ready for use. We also hope to learn why exenatide appears to work better for some patients than for others," said the study's first author, Dr Dilan Athauda (UCL Institute of Neurology).

The researchers say the next step will be a longer-term study with more participants, which will investigate whether there are marked improvements in quality of life.

More information: The Lancet (2017). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)31585-4

Journal reference: The Lancet

Provided by: University College London

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-08-diabetes-drug-potential-disease-modifying-therapy.html

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Music therapy helps people with Parkinson's build strength through song

Date:

August 2, 2017

Source:

Iowa State University

Summary:

A music therapy class is helping people with Parkinson's disease build strength through song. A new study shows singing improves the muscles used for swallowing and respiratory control -- two functions complicated by Parkinson's.

Elizabeth Stegemöller arranged a circle of metal folding chairs around a piano as clients started arriving for a weekly music therapy class for people with Parkinson's disease.

For the next hour, Stegemöller, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University, will lead the class through a series of vocal exercises and songs. Singing uses the same muscles associated with swallowing and respiratory control -- two functions complicated by Parkinson's disease, which can lead to death -- and Stegemöller's research has shown singing significantly improves this muscle activity. The results are published in the journals Disability and Rehabilitation and Complementary Therapies in Medicine.

"We're not trying to make them better singers, but to help them strengthen the muscles that control swallowing and respiratory function," Stegemöller said. "We work on proper breath support, posture and how we use the muscles involved with the vocal cords, which requires them to intricately coordinate good, strong muscle activity."

Jackie Manatt started attending the class two years ago. A love of music is not the reason she keeps coming back every week -- research is her primary motivation. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease 13 years ago, she wants to help advance the science and understanding of the disease, which is exactly why Stegemöller started the singing class. In return, Manatt has noticed improvements in how she projects.

"I don't have much volume in my voice, which is very normal with Parkinson's, to have the voice go," Manatt said. "I just keep thinking I would probably have even less volume by now if I hadn't taken this singing class."

Participants, their caregivers and families have noticed other benefits. Stegemöller says they have reported changes related to stress, mood and depression. Stegemöller has received a grant from the GRAMMY Foundation to study these acute effects and see if there is measurable improvement.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Iowa State University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal References:

1. Elizabeth L. Stegemöller, Hollie Radig, Paul Hibbing, Judith Wingate, Christine Sapienza. Effects of singing on voice, respiratory control and quality of life in persons with Parkinson’s disease. Disability and Rehabilitation, 2016; 39 (6): 594 DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2016.1152610
2. E.L. Stegemöller, P. Hibbing, H. Radig, J. Wingate. Therapeutic singing as an early intervention for swallowing in persons with Parkinson's disease. Complementary Therapies in Medicine, 2017; 31: 127 DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2017.03.00

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170802153940.htm