assessment of a parkinson’s disease client
Are there guidelines or specific movements that are used to assess a clients strength and abilities that has Parkinson’s Disease? Is there maybe a questionnaire as well to assess the overall status of a client like that? I will be getting some info from her physician but would like to make my own assessment to monitor progress.
Hi Ilka,
While I personally have not experienced training a client with Parkinson’s (hopefully others will give you their experiences and suggestions), I just completed some CECs online with an article from AFAA–titled Parkinson’s Disease. In general (because symptoms vary so much and fluctuate from day to day), the article discusses that it may be unnecessary to do formal strength and cardiovascular testing, but instead chart progress during the evolution of the program to show improvements. It would depend on how far the Parkinson’s has progressed. It also discussed more meaningful for an assessment may be a 6 minute walk and 10 meter comfortable pace, 10 meter fast pace, and a 15 meter fast paced walk. This is just a brief overview of that area… The article could provide a resource for you to start.
in addition, here are some other articles/resources from IDEA:
http://www.ideafit.com/fitness-library-most-relevant/Parkinson%27s
I hope others will guide you, but perhaps some of these resources will help as well.
Christine