By KEVIN CHIRI
Slidell news bureau
SLIDELL – Leo Rose is obviously a man who looks at the bright side of things.
Even though he has had two knee replacements, four hernia repairs, surgery on his gall bladder and rotator cuff, and dealt with two leaking valves in his heart, he says, “my health has been pretty good most of my life.”
However, it was time spent with doctors in different jobs he worked that helped him recognize the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease, when he began to have hand tremors, and noticed a problem getting out of his chair.
“It was about eight months ago and I was watching TV from a chair in my house,” the Pearl River resident said. “I suddenly noticed I was bobbing my head to something on TV, but I wasn’t really trying to. Then I began having trouble getting out of the chair.”
Rose, 85, said he thought he was seeing the early signs of Parkinson’s Disease, and once he visited his doctor, it was confirmed he was already well into the early stages of the disease.
But Rose was fortunate enough to live in an area where a new treatment for the disease is showing remarkable results. Slidell Memorial Hospital’s physical therapy department has been teaching the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) system, which is a physical therapy being used for Parkinson’s patients.
The voice treatment therapy involves making patients speak exceptionally loud, exaggerating their speech. Now that approach for treatment has been utilized in Parkinson’s patients, to help them regain their movements in a normal manner, and also to reduce the shuffling that is typical in the disease.
“Once I knew I had Parkinson’s, I heard about a new program at SMH in their rehab department so I wanted to try it,” Rose said.
The rehab consists of four straight days each week of P.T., continuing for a month. The treatment takes about an hour-and-a-half each day, using exaggerated exercises to walk, sit down and stand up, plus other exercises.
Rose has been amazed at the improvement he saw in only one month.
“They told me I had lost 70 percent of my mobility from Parkinson’s, but after only one month, I regained 35 percent of it,” he said. “The staff at SMH is so incredible, and they really helped me regain a lot of my normal movement.”
Rose lives on a few acres of land, so he continues to use the exaggerated walking—taking long steps while swinging his arms—when he goes to get the mail each day, or heads out to his barn.
“I think the biggest surprise to me was that the exercises helped the shuffling to improve a lot,” Rose said. “Shuffling causes you to trip, and after four weeks I got a lot better, not to mention I can sit and stand up just fine again.”
“This is the first therapy (for Parkinson’s) where I’ve said, ‘Wow, this is really working.’ And when patients realize it’s working, they get enthused and work even harder. It’s uplifting,” Outpatient Rehab Director Julia Thomas said. “We’ve seen walking speeds nearly double and our patients say they feel more confident and safe.”
Rose was a lifelong resident of St. Bernard who worked at several medical facilities in the accounting department during his professional life. He has been married for 63 years and had purchased a house and land in Pearl River before Hurricane Katrina.
“I almost sold this property before Katrina, but I’m so glad I didn’t,” he said. “When the storm hit, St. Bernard was wiped out, so we were pretty happy to have this house where we could live. We had a lot of family out here after the hurricane.”
Rose said the only challenge to maintaining his improvement is that the therapy continues for a month at SMH, then patients need to maintain the daily exercises at home.
“I’ve slacked off a little,” he said with a smile. “It’s harder when you don’t have someone pushing you like I did at Slidell Memorial. They have a terrific staff and really made me get everything done.”
Typical treatment for Parkinson’s Disease includes medications that elevate levels of dopamine, medications that decrease tumors and other drugs that mimic the role of dopamine in the brain. In some cases where medication doesn’t show good results, surgery is considered and a deep brain stimulator is implanted.
“If I keep doing the exercises, I will be OK,” Rose said. “I was really pleased with the results, especially since there are others much worse off than me. But I saw really great results when I did the exercises.”
SMH has three therapists certified in the LSVT treatment. You need to be recommended for the therapy by your healthcare provider.