Littleton’s Ray Apking was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013. The chronic neurological disorder impairs his balance and ability to walk. Sometimes, it causes his muscles to lock up or “freeze” and gives him a near constant tingling sensation in his forearms and hands.
After a few weeks of “” fitness classes at this month, Apking said he could already feel a difference.
“I just feel better,” Apking said after completing his seventh hour-long class. “Balance comes and goes but I’m feeling a little stronger.”
The first session of Parkinson’s Foundations classes concludes today at Parks and Recreation’s Buck and Lone Tree rec centers. It wrapped up Wednesday at South Suburban’s Goodson center. The district offers tai chi, water yoga and other classes geared toward people working to improve their mobility, but staffers weren’t sure how the Parkinson’s program would be received when it was launched Sept. 1. The first class answered that.
All 15 slots in the Goodson class were filled from Day 1. Only one of 15 spaces was not filled at Buck, Markley said.
“We had no idea we would get this kind of response,” said Nichelle Markley, fitness coordinator at the Buck Center. “We have every intention of continuing it.”
In last week’s class, Ray Apking, his wife Jonelle, and their fellow participants performed more than a dozen simple exercises focused on establishing a stable base, reaching across the center line of their bodies and stretching beyond their limits in efforts to improve their balance, a key to the Parkinson’s Foundations program, according to instructors.
One routine mimicked catching and releasing a fly. With feet spread apart, participants reached down across their bodies with one hand, before closing it and squeezing tightly. Then, they rose from their partially crouched positions, bringing their hand back across their body and raising it above their head and opening it. Instructor Loelle Poneleit encouraged participants to loudly exclaim “squeeze” when they closed their hand and “open” when they opened it. She explained the many Parkinson’s patients struggle to loudly use their voices, and linking a word to a movement helps creating a queue for the body to begin a movement that it might otherwise resist. Mental cognition is also impaired by Parkinson’s disease.
“I’m really seeing an increase in balance,” Poneleit, a proponent of inclusive fitness, said of her class last week. “I’m seeing a lot people not needing chairs for support as much. Itap a really great program.”
Parkinson’s Foundations was brought to South Suburban be the man who created it.
Gary Sobol, the founder of Boulder-based , contacted the district about offering the workout he developed, officials said. After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2008, Sobol looked at each of its eight major symptoms – including muscle rigidity, decreased hand dexterity, poor balance and cognition—and began developing a range of exercises aimed at addressing them. He launched his “Parkinson’s boot camp” in 2012, and now his Foundations class is being taught in 38 cities in 14 states, with an estimated 1,400 participants each week, he said.
“Itap not a cure but it does restore lost function. Itap allowed me to do a lot of things that I couldn’t do before,” said Sobol, who teaches 10 to 12 of the classes himself each week. “I would say as you soon as you diagnosed you should come to our class. Period. And neurologists would tell people the same.”
The South Suburban classes, set to return in October, are also open to participants who don’t have Parkinson’s. Markley said the class could help people dealing with brain trauma, multiple sclerosis or simply looking to improve their mobility.
Darlene Norris, age 80, has been taking the class at Buck. She has a spinal fusion in her neck that sometimes causes tremors on the left side of her body. Already an avid user of the center’s weight machines, the active Norris said the class has helped improve her balance.
“I definitely find this class beneficial,” she said.
For more information about the Parkinson’s Foundations classes at South Suburban call 303-347-5999.