Muhammad Ali did not want to be the face of Parkinson's disease.
He was The Champ, The Greatest, an elite athlete. He wasn't an illness.
But if anyone could persuade the cocky heavyweight boxing legend to embrace the progressive neurological disease that was causing his slurred speech and deteriorating physical condition, it was neurologist and friend, Dr. Abraham Lieberman.
The two forged a bond over years of appointments, consultations and conversations. Eventually, after persistent cajoling from Lieberman that involved both a house call and a poem — yes, a poem — their connection led to the 1997 founding of the Muhammad Ali Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
Ali and Lieberman remained friends and confidants until Ali's 2016 death in Scottsdale at age 74.
Ali's friend Dr. Lieberman is retiring
Next month, Lieberman, 80, plans to retire from his work treating Parkinson's patients.
"He was a doctor to Muhammad, but he also befriended him," Ali's widow, Lonnie Ali, told The Arizona Republic. "It was a little bit more than being his doctor. ... Muhammad trusted him implicitly."
Staff members at the Muhammad Ali center are driven by a mission that came directly from its namesake:
To give all patients with Parkinson's disease the same kind of high-quality treatment that Muhammad Ali always received throughout the course of his illness, regardless of their ability to pay.
That means that at the Ali center, patients can get all their Parkinson's care in one place, whether it's counseling, physical therapy, family support or medications.
Still no cure for Parkinson's
Research suggests about 60 percent of Parkinson's patients experience depression, anxiety or apathy. The center has always put a big emphasis on helping patients and their families adjust after a diagnosis.
There's still no cure for Parkinson's disease — the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s. But center officials say they are working hard to change that.
Right now, the center has six studies underway examining therapies that could slow down progression of a disease that affects about 1 percent of people older than 60. By age 80, that percentage rises to 4 percent, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
It's less common, but Parkinson's affects younger people, too. Lieberman has Parkinson's patients who are in their 20s and has cared for patients with Parkinson's who go through pregnancies.
Ali took punches to the head in ring
Ali was diagnosed with Parkinsonism — signs and symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease — at age 42.
Yet, he may have been showing symptoms for years beforehand.
In "Ali," his 2017 biography of the boxer, author Jonathan Eig cited an Arizona State University study he co-authored that found Ali's ability to articulate words declined "significantly" between ages 25 and 40,
Eig and others have written about Ali's boxing and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, a brain condition caused by repeated blows to the head. CTE has been linked with dementia and Parkinson's disease.
Although years of getting his head punched in the boxing ring put him at higher risk of developing Parkinson's there's no definite proof that it was boxing that caused his illness, researchers at the Phoenix Parkinson's center maintain.
Signature symptoms of the disease include tremors, voice changes and slow movements. The disease affects at least 10,000 Maricopa County residents, the Parkinson Network of Arizona says.
"We didn't want this to look like a hospital facility. There are pictures on the walls, the colors are nice," Lieberman said. "Lonnie knew from Muhammad that you had to have a taller chair, so some of the chairs are higher, so that you don't have to catapult yourself out. She was very involved in picking the furniture."
For patients who can't make it there physically, the center has a broad program of providing health care and education via computer teleconferencing in both English and Spanish.Dr. Abraham Lieberman is retiring from the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix, which center he founded with his friend and former patient Muhammad Ali. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)
Ali's name meant it 'had to be the best'
Dr. Abraham Lieberman is retiring from the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix, which center he founded with his friend and former patient Muhammad Ali. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic)
"It had Muhammad's name on it and because of that (Lieberman) felt it had to be the best, to do the best and to be there for every Parkinson patient who needed help," Lonnie Ali told the Republic. "I have no doubt this center will continue to grow and help a vast number of people and continue to make Dr. Lieberman proud. He made sure of that. That's why he's 80 and just retiring."
Lieberman says age and health are driving his decision to retire. He had polio as a child and was for a time paralyzed below the waist. He mostly recovered, except for a lingering limp.
About 18 years ago, he developed a progressive disease called post-polio syndrome, which required him to use a medical walking stick. He now uses two. In 2015, he gave up directorship of the center to neurologist Dr. Holly Shill; in December he'll leave the center for good.
"It's hard to get around. I can't really walk distances. At my retirement party I was in a wheelchair," said Lieberman, who came to Arizona from New York in 1988. "It's become very hard. It's hard to travel. If you are running a center like this, you've got to go to meetings, you've got to make contacts. It is time to step down."
After her husband died, Lonnie gave his wheelchair to Lieberman.
"Who better to have it? I had it at home. It was something I was keeping of Muhammad's and it was hard to part with, just because he was in that chair so much," Lonnie said. "But who better to have that chair than Dr. Lieberman? And he deserved it. He deserved that chair. I just hope Muhammad's energy is still there where he can feel it."
Through the years, the star-studded Celebrity Fight Night fundraiser in Arizona has become synonymous with Muhammad Ali. Ali died June 3, 2016, and the 2017 event will celebrate the champ's life. Wochit
Lieberman and Ali first met in New York City the mid-1980s, shortly after Ali was diagnosed. Lieberman was working at New York University and was not a boxing devotee. He was both astounded and impressed by the near "saintlike" status Ali commanded.
"I was called to go and see Muhammad. I had a good reputation in Parkinson's, I'd published papers. ... I went to the faculty practice area and there was just this long line of people who worked at the center — they all wanted to see Muhammad," Lieberman said.
"I had no idea at that time how well-loved he was," Lieberman added. "I really didn't follow boxing closely, but I was just overwhelmed by how many people wanted to see Muhammad Ali."
Lieberman described Ali as an extrovert who derived joy from meeting other people.
"You can't explain it, You spend two minutes with him and you felt like lifelong friends," he said. "He treated everyone with respect, a very nice person."
The Muhammad Ali center's genesis was a charity event that began in Phoenix in 1994 as Fight Night with celebrities and professional athletes. It is now called Celebrity Fight Night and has a reputation for attracting A-list guests and musical stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Carrie Underwood and Andrea Bocelli.
When Fight Night creator Jimmy Walker decided he wanted Ali to participate, Ali and his wife, Lonnie, told him he needed to connect with Lieberman, a neurologist in Phoenix they both respected. Walker and Lieberman met over lunch at the old Ritz-Carlton Phoenix at 24th Street and Camelback Road.
Lieberman knew Ali's name could help raise money for Parkinson's disease research at Barrow. But getting Ali to allow his franchised name to be used for the fight against Parkinson's was no easy task.
Muhammad Ali is escorted onstage by his wife, Lonnie, during Celebrity Fight Night XVII at JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix on Saturday, March 19, 2011. (Photo: Ralph Freso/Special for the Republic)
Barrow Neurological Institute was well-known in the neurology community, but Ali's name was universal.
The problem was, Ali liked to focus on the positive. He was emphatic about not wanting to become known for Parkinson's disease.
Moreover, Ali was known for his athletic prowess and his physical beauty, Lonnie said. He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about Parkinson's and he didn't want others thinking about Muhammad Ali and Parkinson's together, either.
"Muhammad was fluid and beautiful in the ring. It was almost like ballet, the way he danced around the ring," she told TheRepublic. "To be diminished in some way because of this illness, he didn't want anything to do with that."
Imploring the boxer to reconsider, Lieberman visited Ali at his home in Michigan. The answer was no.
Lieberman tried again. This time, he penned a poem.
"The image, the legend, the symbol of Muhammad Ali is ageless," Lieberman wrote. "A part of the world, like the pyramids, and the Grand Canyon. This can never change."
The poem also says Ali was given a unique combination of "grace, guile and power," and that avoiding involvement with Parkinson's disease is the opposite of stinging like a bee.
He was referring to a phrase Ali used to say before entering the ring: "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."
"You have the ability to help people with Parkinson/And you must meet this challenge," Lieberman wrote. "When you go to your grave, as we all must/It will not be enough that you were the greatest champion in history/If Parkinson disease lives on."
Ali immediately changed his mind.
"Muhammad was always impressed with somebody who wrote poetry. And he liked it even more because it talked about him," Lonnie said.
The first year Ali participated in Fight Night, the event raised $130,000 for Barrow Neurological Institute. The next year, it raised a quarter of a million dollars.
Muhammad Ali center opened in 1997
In 1997, Walker, Ali and Lieberman opened the Muhammad Ali Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center.
Walker recalls Lieberman making an unforgettable comment at the opening that if a New York Jew, a Muslim from Louisville, Kentucky, and Christians from Arizona could join together to open a center at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix, it would certainly be possible to build the greatest Parkinson's center in the United States and to one day even find a cure for Parkinson's disease.
"He's such a kind man, very humble, and that was his dream. He did so much to make this happen," Walker said of Lieberman. "Because of the charity event, I still get sometimes one or two people per week telling me they have someone in their family with Parkinson's disease. I tell them they need to meet with Dr. Lieberman, go to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center."
Invariably, Lieberman ends up giving those patients his cellphone number, Walker said.
Ali attended approximately 20 Celebrity Fight Night events, including one the year he died. By then, Parkinson's had robbed Ali of his voice, but the people who attended didn't care. They just wanted to see him, Walker recalled.
Walker and Lieberman have been friends ever since that first meeting. and Walker was the master of ceremonies at a recent retirement and appreciation party for Lieberman.
Celebrity Fight Night has raised more than $20 million for the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in the last 21 years, which has helped the center fund several expansions.
Lieberman was gone from the center for a period between 1998 and 2007 for a position in academia at the University of Miami. When he left Phoenix, he left behind a practice of 3,000 Parkinson's patients, which was one of the largest in the country at that time, Barrow officials say.
Upon returning to Phoenix, he became director of the Ali center, doubled the patient load in two years and found himself channeling his most famous patient as he tried to persuade Barrow officials to give him the space and money to expand. At first, they suggested he share a 30,000 square foot space with Barrow's ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) center.
"I started to think Muhammad Ali is Muhammad Ali, he doesn't share space with anyone," Lieberman said ."I said, 'We'll take all the space.'"
Ali and his wife by then had moved to Phoenix from Michigan and Ali enjoyed visiting the Parkinson's center, his widow recalled.
"Muhammad loved it because it was all about him," Lonnie said. "You couldn't get him down that hallway to physical therapy because it had all those pictures of him. He would stop and look. He'd light up looking at that."
Boxing, painting & Parkinson's
Dr. Abraham Lieberman speaks June 6, 2016, during a press conference at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center at Dignity Health St. Joseph's, 240 W. Thomas Road. (Photo: Mark Henle, Mark Henle/The Republic)
Since the center's founding, awareness about Parkinson's disease and its effect on families has increased tremendously, Shill said.
There's no way to slow the disease's progression, but there are more ways to reduce disability and improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson's, particularly with earlier detection and regular exercise, she said.
When Alejandra Borunda was diagnosed with a genetic form of young-onset Parkinson's disease three years ago, she was devastated and spent several months researching options for what to do next. Eventually, her research led her to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson's Center, where she enrolled in a class for newly diagnosed patients.
She has since participated in other education, painting and boxing classes through the center, and a support group for Spanish speakers. Staff and many of the other patients at the center are now like a second family, she said.
"If you have to have Parkinson's disease, Phoenix is the best place to have it. There are a lot of resources here," said Borunda, 32, who is now both a patient and certified volunteer at the center, and will be an ambassador at the World Parkinson Congress in Japan next year.
She has never met Lieberman, though she's seen him in passing. In her role as a case manager for Phoenix residents struggling with homelessness, Borunda recently helped a client get an appointment with him.
"When I checked the appointment and it said Dr. Lieberman, I told her she was going to see Muhammad Ali's doctor. She was so excited," Borunda said. "Muhammad Ali made sure that people with insufficient funds would always be able to get help there."
Borunda said the client is now on medication, living in a women's shelter and doing well.
At Lieberman's retirement party, which was attended by friends and colleagues last month, the word 'tenacity' came up several times, Shill said.
"He says he's going to do something and he finds a way to make it happen," said Shill, who has known Lieberman since medical school and considers him a mentor.
"He at one time was the medical director for the National Parkinson's Foundation. He brought that knowledge, that way of connecting with patients and families and really expanded this place to have a national presence and now an international presence."
The center does more deep brain stimulation surgeries per year — about 100 — than any other Parkinson's center in the country, Shill said. Not all patients with Parkinson's are candidates for the surgery, but when the surgery succeeds it can help lessen symptoms, particularly problems that so many Parkinson's patients have with balance.
Shill noted that some Phoenix patients who go to the center for physical therapy are there four and five times per week. Other options for patients and their families include regular jewelry making workshops, dance and tai chi classes and a singing program called the Tremble Clefs.
Research is conducted on site, too, she said.
"There's really nowhere like it in the world."
There are video's and more pictures at:
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-health/2018/11/21/muhammad-alis-phoenix-neurologist-retiring-powerful-legacy-abraham-lieberman/1892745002/
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