Pilates may help ease the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

The article from NBC6.Net summarized on Medicine.Org, stating that Pilates may help relieve the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease is, I believe, misleading and possibly even detrimental to Parkinsons patients, despite short-term anecdotal evidence cited in the original article.

Once past the sensational headline about Pilates, we find that exercise apparently is what helps Parkinson's patients, not Pilates in particular. As one of the people interviewed in that article said, "It could be any exercise" that might help people, said Kristi Sesso, owner of the Harmony Group Pilates and Gyrotonics studio in Englewood, N.J. "But Pilates is a great point of access."

I disagree. Almost any form of exercise would be a better point of access than Pilates for Parkinson's patients because of the key Pilates concept of how to breathe.

Parkinson's is a disease of the brain and is considered a neurological disorder. That means the nervous system is involved. Joseph Pilates states clearly in his book that we should all keep tight abdominal muscles and breathe thoracically as much of the time as possible to develop the core strength he feels is so important.

But tight abs restrict movement of the diaphragm, which makes abdominal breathing impossible. Abdominal breathing has been shown to have beneficial effects on all neurological conditions because abdominal breathing harmonizes the functioning of the central nervous system. It does this by correcting imbalances caused by excessive sympathetic arousal.

The sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system triggers our fight or flight response in a crisis. The parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is what returns our system to balance when the crisis is over. Abdominal breathing triggers the parasympathetic, quickly halting the flow of stress hormones like adrenalin and cortisol, reducing high blood pressure, lowering the heart rate, and reactivating essential metabolic processes like digestion that go "on hold" during the stress response.

Because of Pilates' strict injunction against abdominal breathing, which is so important to health and well-being for everyone but especially for patients of neurological disorders, Pilates may be less advantageous for patients of Parkinson's disease than other forms of exercise.

Steve Ross, MA, MFT
www.home.earthlink.net/~sross1