BOSTON UNIVERSITY PILOTS DISEASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM FOR PEOPLE WITH PARKINSONÂ’S
BOSTON UNIVERSITY PILOTS DISEASE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM FOR PEOPLE WITH PARKINSONÂ’S
(PRWEB) August 1, 2003
Boston, MA (PRWEB) July, 2003 – Improved quality of life, increased mobility, and stronger communication skills are three aims of a new rehabilitation study for people with Parkinson’s disease. The three-year, million dollar, NIH funded study will be undertaken by Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.
Its innovative design combines rehabilitation for self management and exercise training sessions in an intensive, six-week format that researchers say will provide people with ParkinsonÂ’s disease with better skills for successful long-term management of their condition.
Current programs separate rehabilitation sessions, focusing either on movement disorders or communication problems. These sessions are usually few in number. They often treat problems associated with an advanced stage or they address injuries that result from disease-related complications. Consequently, individuals must rely on medication and infrequent doctors visits to help them deal with their condition.
The Sargent College program involves participants in simultaneous sessions of occupational, physical and speech therapy and helps them develop coping skills within an intensive period of six weeks. Participants are engaged in therapeutic intervention when they experience problems in their activities of daily living.
“We have designed the optimal kind of rehabilitation,” explains Linda Tickle-Degnen, co-investigator on the study and an occupational therapy professor at Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “We are going to take the best of rehabilitation, make it very powerful, and use it when patients are experiencing problems in moving around and speaking. The long term goal is to slow the decline in mobility and communication.”
Other investigators include, Sargent CollegeÂ’s Robert Wagenaar, PhD, principal investigator and chairman of the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, and Terry (Theresa) Ellis, a rehabilitation science professor specializing in physical therapy.
Boston UniversityÂ’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences is an institution of higher education and research whose premier academic programs prepare dynamic health care professionals and whose research and leadership in the health and rehabilitation sciences is actively shaping health care.
For more information about Sargent College and to learn about their degree programs in physical therapy, occupational therapy, communication disorders, health sciences, athletic training, nutrition and rehabilitation counseling, visit http://www. bu. edu/sargent (http://www. bu. edu/sargent).
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