Physical therapy aid Alicia Phillips helps patient
Suzanne Volin relieve Parkinson’s symptoms at the
Giger MD Movement Therapy Center in
Boca Raton. Paula Detwiller/The Coastal Star
By Paula Detwiller
Charlie Lorenzo was a star basketball player for Seton Hall University in the 1950s. When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease about 12 years ago, he wasn’t ready for the physical limitations it would impose.
“All my life I was very athletic, and thought there was nothing I couldn’t do,” says Lorenzo, 78, who lives along the Intracoastal Waterway in Boca Raton.
Rabbi Merle Singer, who is retired from a long career with Boca’s Temple Beth El, also grapples with Parkinson’s these days.
“Every day is a new set of challenges,” says Singer, now 73. ”It’s like a thief in the night that steals away your mobility.”
Both men have found an ally in a new medical device that resembles an upside-down bicycle. Named after its inventor, Adrian Giger of Switzerland, the Giger MD helps people with movement disorders regain strength and coordination through “full body locomotion therapy.”
Here’s how it works. Patients lie face-up on the padded bench, placing their feet on the foot pedals and grabbing the rotating handles.
As they pedal their arms and legs simultaneously, they can watch a TV show, movie or DVD on an overhead computer screen. That same screen displays biofeedback — how much energy is being expended, how smooth and consistent the ride is — which helps them monitor and improve their performance.
What’s the science behind it? Repeated sessions on the Giger MD help to reprogram the brain, says Boca Raton occupational therapist Ed Gray.
“It looks like upside-down crawling, doesn’t it?” Gray asks, watching a patient work the pedals. “OK, so what’s the first thing we learn to do? Crawl, before we walk. So when we have somebody with a type of movement disorder, whether it’s Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, stroke or something else that’s disrupting the central nervous system’s programming, this machine helps them relearn natural movement.”
For Gray’s patients Singer and Lorenzo, it’s been a ray of hope.
“The first thing it did was get me to stand up straighter,” says Singer. “There’s a tendency to get into a Parkinson’s stoop. But every time I got off the machine, I found myself standing and walking more erect without even thinking about it.”
Singer says sessions on the machine give him more energy and make his stiffened muscles more loose and flexible. “It’s almost magical,” he says.
Lorenzo, who relies on a wheelchair, used the Giger MD for three weeks before leaving for his summer home in New Jersey. He says his coordination improved and he was able to walk with a walker for short periods of time.
Therapy on the Giger MD, which is covered by insurance, cannot stop the advance of Parkinson’s and other progressive diseases, says Gray, but it can slow them down, making patients feel stronger, more optimistic, and less likely to suffer debilitating falls.
Even better, he says, is that “with stroke patients and those with cerebral palsy or spinal cord injury, we’re seeing lasting and permanent improvement in function. The brain appears to be rewiring circuits that were damaged.”
He mentions a female patient who was hit in a head-on collision in the Keys and is now quadriplegic.
“We had her on the device three times a week. She was able to sit with her head up after the treatment — with no assistance — and while on the device, she started to initiate a little arm movement,” he says.
Gray has invested in five of these devices, placing one at his Boynton Beach physical therapy facility and four at his Movement Therapy Center in Boca Raton (www.gigermdtherapy.com). And he’s busy collecting patient data to be included in a study at the University of Bern, Switzerland, on the effectiveness of the device in treating Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s patient Suzanne Volin of suburban Boca Raton says she’s pleased with the strength and balance she’s regained using the machine. While pedaling, she watches a DVD about Switzerland.
“I love the view,” she says. “We spent 2½ months in Zurich and I know this scenery.”
Paula Detwiller is a freelance writer and lifelong fitness junkie. Find her at www.pdwrites.com.
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