April 10, 2016
Anthony Cook gets assistance from Penny Lightfoot in putting on his boxing gloves before a Parkinsons weightlifting and boxing program at the Anderson-Cohen Weightliftng Center.
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TGEM of a program
Michael Cohen, who manages the weightlifting center partially
named after his father, Howard, received a call a few months ago from Sarah
Bernzott, the executive director of the Savannah Parkinson’s Support Group.
Bernzott told Cohen about a program called Rock Steady Boxing, which is based
in Indianapolis and helps Parkinson’s patients live out active lifestyles
through boxing. Scott C. Newman, the man who started Rock Steady, found that
boxing created an improvement in his health, agility and energy.
Cohen researched the program and thought with the resources
available to him at Anderson-Cohen, he could create his own program, which he
called GEM.
Cohen took a trial class of about 20 patients and ran them
through his six-week Level 1 course, which they completed March 31. Now they’re
on to Level 2. Word has gotten out about the program. Another wave of
participants is getting ready to start Level 1, and Cohen said he has classes
completely booked for months ahead.
Early on, Cohen decided his program didn’t need to be limited to
boxing.
“It all started with boxing,” he said. “I didn’t like its
one-dimensionality. I needed them to understand other things. I’m big on
variety.”
Through simple, repetitive exercises, the brain can re-establish
connection with nerves affected by the disease, he said. Level 1 introduced
patients to basic exercise movements and was mostly pretty simple with just one
chief goal in mind: for the patients to know they can do it. Cohen’s first
course has been somewhat experimental, and not everything has worked, but he
hasn’t lost a single patient, he said.
“I knew we had hit the right chord when after the fourth class,
everyone was still coming.”
Bernzott, who works with most of the class members regularly in
her support group, said the difference made in just six weeks has been
remarkable. Patients are doing things they had thought they’d never be able to
do again, she said.
“They really thought they would decline from here,” she said.
“Now they’re discovering there’s so much they can do.”
And there’s more to come at Level 2, and Cohen said his students
will be even more surprised at what they can achieve. Some will be lifting
weights over their heads, and the class will even extend to the indoor pool at
Savannah State, where they’ll focus on overcoming water resistance, Cohen said.
“It’s about getting out of your comfort zone and making yourself
do something,” he said.
Moment of truth
Of the patients that comprised Cohen’s first class, Kemp has the
most progressive form of the disease. Gary Pauley, meanwhile, is
broad-shouldered 52-year-old man who can send the punching bag swinging
backward and is the group’s most vocal supporter.
But the disease has been just as difficult for him to accept. He
denied it until Diet Mountain Dew, his favorite soft drink, hit him with the
reality. He pulled the can of soda from the fridge in a convenience store, and
dropped it. The can landed with a thud and cracked open, the soda spewing. He
grabbed another one. Same thing happened. His fingers couldn’t hold a grip on
them.
He said the convenience store clerk kicked him out for being
wasteful.
“I was probably in denial for two years,” Pauley said. “It
initially started with two fingers on my right hand that twitched all the time.
Then I started losing strength in my right arm.”
Pauley spent 21 years in the U.S. Army as a military police
officer and retired in 2002, looking forward to years of long-distance running
as his recreation.
He was diagnosed in 2009. Even after that, he still competed in
three marathons and nine half marathons. But he hasn’t been able to run the
last two years.
“Everyone likes to think after they retire, the best part of
their life is ahead of them,” he said. “It was a real kick in the shorts.”
Pauley also knows what it’s like to feel defeated by
Parkinson’s.
“Alzheimer’s is the disease where you no longer recognize your
family. Parkinson’s is the disease where your family no longer recognizes you,”
he said. “It’s the feeling that your body is failing you.”
At one point, his hands got so bad he couldn’t button his shirt
or tie his shoes. So now he just wears plain shirts and slip-ons.
Pauley is one of the few in the class who doesn’t have a
caretaker, still clinging with all his strength to his independence.
“That’s the one thing I refuse,” he said. “That’s the next step
I’m trying to fight. I still feel I can take care of myself.”
The GEM program reinforced that idea to him, he said.
“It’s just the fact I can do everything better. I can see the
strength coming back, and I can see my agility getting better.”
Like so many in the class, boxing gave him the most
gratification, and it would have been easy for others to think he didn’t have
the disease the way he treated the bag.
“You know that rush you get when you’re in a competition? You’re
going for something, and you’re actually going to beat it? That’s the type of
rush I get when I punch that bag.”
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| Gary Pauley encourages one of the other members of the Get Excited to Move program at Anderson-Cohen Weightlifting Center as she steps through the "ladder of life." (Josh Galemore/Savannah Morning News) |
Emotional outlet
With the variety of activities GEM offers, Cohen said it was OK
if a patient just locked into one he’s good at.
Tommy Kemp liked hitting the punching bags as well. Maybe it was
because it felt like the best way to relieve the frustration, as if the disease
itself was in front of the patients and they were given the green light to take
their best shots. He put on his own pair of boxing gloves along with everyone
else in the class and threw his best left and right jabs at the bag.
Right behind him was Donna Kemp with a pair of gloves of her
own. Lightfoot was also there with him, sporting pink gloves.
The program is as much for the spouses and caretakers as it is
for the patients. Once the disease progresses, there’s very little the patients
can do on their own, and daily life can become exhausting for someone like
Donna.
After the first couple of weeks, with everyone at the punching
bags, “It’s hard to see who are the folks with Parkinson’s and who are the
caretakers,” Lightfoot said.
But Tommy said he’s not giving up on the ladder. In fact, he
bought his own and practices at home.
Donna said she doesn’t expect a cure from the program, but step
by step, she’s getting pieces of her husband back she thought were gone.
Smiling might be his best activity right now.
“Anything that improves our quality of life,” she said. “That’s
what we’re looking for at this point. I want him to be happy again.”
A smile broke through Tommy’s trembling mouth when she spoke.
“See,”
she said. “That doesn’t happen very often.”
http://savannahnow.com/sports/2016-04-09/local-exercise-program-allows-patients-fight-back-against-parkinsons#
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