S8 E6: Using Music to Improve Movement for Parkinson's Disease w/Dr. Terry Ellis
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https://www.bu.edu/neurorehab/our-team/
https://www.bu.edu/sargent/profile/terry-ellis-pt-phd-ncs/
https://www.bu.edu/neurorehab/profile/terry-ellis-phd/
https://www.bu.edu/neurorehab/
Terry Ellis, Ph.D., PT, is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Physical Therapy and Director of the Center for Neurorehabilitation at Boston University. Dr. Ellis also serves as the Director of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA) National Rehabilitation Resource Center. Her research is funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the APDA and broadly focuses on understanding mechanisms underlying walking impairments in persons with Parkinson disease and developing rehabilitation approaches to improve real-world walking in the home and community settings. She has expertise in music-based digital therapeutics and soft robotic apparel to improve real-world walking and to prevent freezing of gait. Dr. Ellis has a Ph.D. in Behavioral Neurosciences from Boston University School of Medicine and is a licensed physical therapist with board certification in Neurologic Physical Therapy. She has published numerous articles and lectures internationally on topics related to the optimization of rehabilitation in Parkinson disease.
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Parkinson’s Disease is a disease where the specialized neurons that create dopamine in the midbrain die off for some reason; could be genetic or environmental, it is not totally clear. So there is not enough dopamine in the brain.
A resting tremor is the most common referenced symptoms in PD. However, that is not always the most bothersome symptoms of those with PD. There can be a slowness and smallness of movement. Bradykinesia and hypokinesia. They may think and move more slowly. So when they walk, they may walk more slowly and take smaller steps with less arm swing. There is an overall ‘smallness’ even in speaking and handwriting. So there can be an experience of one’s world becoming smaller.
PD is known for motor symptoms described above; however, there is a host of nonmotor symptoms that can be experienced like mood changes, cognitive challenges, and automatic functions controlled by parts of the brain can be slowed.
The symptoms can contribute to a decline in function. Physical therapists aim to increase functionality and mobility despite their symptoms.
These changes can impact relationship due to being less expressive during interactions (e.g., less gestures and less overt outward facial expressions). This can be misperceived as being less engaged with others when in fact they may be engaged and wanting to connect with others. Socializing can feel more effortful and challenging to sustain relationships.
There are effective symptom controlling pharmacological treatments to dampen tremors or make movements slightly bigger; however, there is no treatment to slow or cure the disease. In the absence of a cure, people with PD can still live a full lifespan with the disease.
There is no exact clear indicator of how PD develops in an individual. It’s only a small portion of those with PD who have a genetic indicator. Most cases are sporadic and do not show a genetic cause. There is strong environmental component evidence that may lead to toxicity in the brain.
There may be a grieving process in the diagnosis of PD; particularly when there may be no known cause which can be difficult to grapple with. Psychological support can be helpful in the stages of learning about the diagnosis and ultimately seeing what is possible for learning how to live with PD.
Fear of the unknown across areas of life can be a common emotional experience. Additionally, PD can be very variable in the sense that it may manifest very different across different people with PD.
The way PD is diagnosed is often through a clinical examination. There are certain brain imaging DAT scans that may indirectly find signs that approximate PD. There is also a skin biopsy test to potentially indicate signs of PD. However, it is mostly diagnosed through a clinical examination, such as motor exams and taking a detailed history. An individual may have symptoms for many years without being diagnosed.
Since PD affects so many areas of life, it requires a team, such as dieticians, physical therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, etc. Dr. Ellis directs the Boston University Center for Neurorehab training students to specifically treat people with PD. She strives to train professionals who have all the knowledge to treat those with PD effectively.
There can be executive function challenges with skills like planning, multitasking, organizational tasks, and cognitive shifting. It can depend on one’s lifestyle and profession in terms of how it impacts an individual. It can help to develop or identify executive function scaffolding and supports in one’s environment to bolster these skills.
With PD, walking steps and arm expansion become shorter. The quality of walking can decline. The midbrain basal ganglia, which allows for automaticity in movement, goes awry in PD. The frontal lobe becomes more active in this type of conscious thought to compensate. The automaticity of walking declines. When they think about walking consciously and tell their limbs to move ‘on demand’ their walking quality can improve. However, this is not sustainable because it requires a constant amount of conscious thought to do something that was previously automatic, as if they are learning to ride a bike again for the first time.
The auditory and the motor system are tightly linked. The auditory system can stimulate the motor system, like when you hear music and begin to sway and tap to the music. Other areas of the brain like the cerebellum can also get activated when music is listened to. These parts of the brain, including the auditory and cerebellum, are not affected by PD and so are recruited for these purposes. Dr. Ellis created an intervention where individuals with PD are provided music that is chosen that is in sync with the rhythm of their walking (or slightly faster). By doing so, they are able to more naturally walk without conscious thought. There is also an option to have an option of songs that match the tempo of their walking pace. This can reduce the cognitive load (in the frontal part of the brain) of consciously getting one’s body to walk.
Dr. Ellis finds that participants enjoy choosing their music and having music as mood elevating in general. Once they realize their walking is better, they walk more, walk faster, walk with more automaticity, and enjoy walking more. This can also help individuals to be more present and in the moment with less conscious thought, which can have positive effects in of itself
Exercise shows a reduction in the severity of PD symptoms, which may reflect a slowing of the disease. Exercise is clearly considered therapeutic for people with PD, at least moderate intensity exercise in particular. Dr. Ellis’ intervention using music to improve walking helps them to have a higher intensity of exercise, which leads to the physiological benefits of higher intensity exercise. Improvements in walking can also improve socialization, which is also beneficial in of itself.
Dr. Ellis is also looking into whether music in the background during one’s day to day life could be helpful aside from using it to improve walking.
Even a metronome can be helpful in terms of mapping on the walking to the pace of the metronome. If people fall off the rhythm of the beat in Dr. Ellis’ intervention, the individuals get feedback that they are off the rhythm whereby a metronome gets louder (over the song) to bring the person back to the rhythm. MedRhythms gives continuous feedback through an algorithm. It’s a closed loop rhythm device. Dr. Ellis just got funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation to have a larger scale study in summer of 2026, enrolling about 160 people with PD, to use their device while walking for about 3 months.
Rehab@bu.edu is an email address to leave contact information to go through a phone screening process to see if they meet the eligibility criteria to be part of the study.
People with PD who have engaged in tango and other forms of dance have benefitted from participating in dance. This has been well researched. There is a music component, learning new skills, balance involved, and other aspects; so it may be all these factors that contribute to the benefits. People with PD who have trouble walking have been shown to be able to dance better than they can walk. Those with a musical background or those in the service (from marching) seem to pick it up quickly. Dancing also has a social component, which has it’s own benefits.
Doctors can prescribe the MedRhythms music device for those with PD and the device can be mailed right to the patient’s home.
Without a device, you can experiment with measuring the tempo of your walking and then finding music that has the same rhythm/tempo or slightly faster to see how it feels. Dr. Ellis tends to use songs that are around 110/120 beats per minute (in that range) in her studies. Songs that have an easily identifiable beat is best for individuals to find the beat.
Dr. Ellis suggests that decades ago when she first started in the field of PD research, the benefits of physical therapy have become robustly discovered and now have led to clinical guidelines. Dr. Ellis suggests people do not only want to live longer but they want to live with a higher quality of life. She dedicates her career to helping those with PD improve their healthspan, not just their lifespan.
Dr. Ellis goes to the World’s Parkinson’s Congress, which happens every three years. She finds it fascinating that those with PD and their caregivers are invited; just as all those involved in the field of PD, including researchers (studying PD on all levels), physical therapists, and anyone trying to help, cure, and assist those with PD. By doing so, everyone can learn from everyone. This helps everyone understand each other and see things from each others’ perspectives. It also brings everyone on the same team toward the same goal coming at it from different angles, experiences, and areas of expertise.
Those who go into the field of physical therapy can make their way through different roles in their career. There is so much more to learn and the field is always evolving, so it keeps those in the profession fresh and excited to grow and learn. Dr. Ellis feels like the current research is cutting edge and she prides her program on supporting the students to know the most they can to be prepared to truly help those who they serve after they graduate.
Dr. Ellis hopes for everyone to be able to access high quality healthcare in the future.
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Gerald Reid 00:09
Welcome back to the Reid Connect-ED Podcast, hosted by myself, licensed psychologist Dr. Gerald Reid, and my sister, educational therapist Alexis Reid. Music moves us. It's a phrase we often use to describe how music stirs our emotions, but music does more than move us emotionally, it moves us physically as well, in ways that can be deeply therapeutic for individuals living with chronic neurological conditions. Oliver Sacks, the renowned neurologist and author, once said, "In 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical therapy to be vitally important for patients living with chronic neurological diseases, and those are music and gardens. This work continues as researchers uncover more about the therapeutic impact of music, and today we're joined by Dr. Terry Ellis to discuss the role of music in the lives of individuals with Parkinson's disease. Dr. Ellis is a professor at Boston University Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the Department of Physical Therapy. Her work focuses on understanding how exercise and rehabilitation can impact the progression of disability in people with Parkinson's disease. She also serves as the director of the Center for Neuro Rehabilitation at Boston University, where she leads research, provides clinical consultation, and educates both healthcare professionals and individuals living with neurological conditions. In addition, she directs the American Parkinson Disease Association National Rehabilitation Resource Center, also housed at Boston University.
Alexis Reid 01:50
Dr. Ellis teaches within the Doctor of Physical Therapy program, specializing in the examination and treatment of patients with neurological disorders. She holds a PhD in behavioral neurosciences from Boston University School of Medicine, and is a board certified specialist in neurologic physical therapy. Her work has been widely published, and she lectures internationally on rehabilitation for individuals with Parkinson's disease. She also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of neurologic physical therapy, and is an active member of both the American Physical Therapy Association and the Movement Disorder Society. We're truly excited to have Dr. Ellis with us today in the studio. Jerry had a privilege of connecting with her last semester to learn more about how she integrates music into therapeutic practice for individuals with Parkinson's disease, it was immediately clear how thoughtful and dedicated she is. We're especially interested in exploring how something as accessible and universal as muzhik can be used as a meaningful therapeutic tool. Dr. Ellis, thank you for being here and sharing your work and insights with us today.
Dr. Terry Ellis 02:58
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. This is an exciting topic, and I look forward to our conversation.
Gerald Reid 03:05
Amazing, thank you so much, Dr. Ellis. I think for the audience, just kind of starting broad and really just talking about just Parkinson's disease, you know what? What is Parkinson's disease? We may kind of see it visually in terms of how it manifests behaviorally, but can you tell us just a little bit, almost like an elevator speech, about, you know, what is Parkinson's disease?
Dr. Terry Ellis 03:27
Yeah, yeah, Parkinson's disease is a disease where the neurons, specialized neurons in the midbrain, die off for some reason, we're not entirely sure why that is, it's probably a genetic component and an environmental component, but there's certain cells that produce dopamine that die off, and so the essence of it is we don't have enough dopamine in with Parkinson's disease, and dopamine plays lots of different roles, and I think what people are probably most familiar with when they hear about Parkinson's disease is arresting tremor, you know, they hear about, oh, there's a, you know, people with tremor, you know, might have Parkinson's disease, and so that is true, that is one of the symptoms, but that's actually not one of the symptoms that's like sort of most bothersome for people, it goes way beyond tremor, and so people with Parkinson's disease can have really sort of a lot of slowness of movement and smallness of movement, so this is called like the slowness or bradykinesia, the smallness or hypokinesia, so people with Parkinson's move slowly, they think more slowly, and so when someone with Parkinson's walks, for example, they, they walk more slowly, they take smaller steps, their arms don't swing as much. But there's an overall smallness, like small voice, the voice can't project as much, handwriting is smaller, so people with Parkinson's describe their world sometimes as feeling small, you know, and so that's very, it's not what people are most sort of familiar with, there's also a whole host, like Parkinson's, is known for these motor symptoms, which is what I just described, the smallness and slowness of movement and the tremor, but there's also a whole host of non-motor symptoms that people with Parkinson's can experience, things like depression, mood changes, anxiety, some people can have cognitive challenges. The part of the nervous system that controls automatic functions, like digestion, for example, can be slowed, so it's, it's like sort of affects multiple systems, and this is generally not well appreciated, you know. From my standpoint, like, as a physical therapist, what I focus on with people with Parkinson's disease are the movement problems. Like, how do we.. it's not just about the individual symptoms of Parkinson's, but it's like, how do all those symptoms collectively then contribute to a decline in function, and so, as physical therapists, we focus on that function, the big picture movement, because in the end, people with Parkinson's care about getting around in their everyday life, being independent, being mobile, right, engaging in the community, being able to socialize, go places, do things like they, you know, the things they want to do, the things they enjoy. And so, as physical therapists, we work on trying to optimize that. How do we keep people functioning and keep them mobile and keep them functioning at the highest level possible? The
Gerald Reid 07:00
idea of your world and your way of expressing yourself becoming smaller, everything you're saying sounds like, you know, in some ways from a mental health standpoint, the way you express yourself, and it becomes slower or more constricted. Yeah, it feels like that's could be really life changing.
Dr. Terry Ellis 07:21
It can be. It really can be. And it's, it's, it's very challenging. It's challenging for people living with Parkinson's, and it's challenging for their families, and you know, families, friends, socializing can become more challenging because people aren't as expressive, and they're not, you know, usually when we're talking and socializing, we're gesturing and moving and engaging, and you know, people with Parkinson's can have more constrained movement, a more, they call it a masked face, like not much expression in the face, and people perceive that as, Jesus, this person seems depressed or angry or not engaged, and it's not true. If you ask them, you know, they are engaged and they're interested in their, you know, so it's a sort of a misperception of what they're feeling, but that makes it, you know, hard to socialize. It's very sort of effortful, and that can be, you know, that can make it more challenging to sustain.
Alexis Reid 08:25
I'm so glad that you're explaining all this, because, you know, part of the podcast is we try to showcase and talk about a lot of different types of people, because essentially the thing that we think brings everybody together is just an understanding that there's so much variability in this world,
Gerald Reid 08:41
yeah.
Alexis Reid 08:42
And if we can learn more about where that's coming from, we think, at least in our optimistic views, make the world a better place, just to have empathy and to be able to think through different perspectives. And you know, I really appreciate you sharing some of the misconceptions that we might have when we interact with somebody who is dealing with a neurodegenerative disease like Parkinson's.
Dr. Terry Ellis 09:07
Yeah, and you know, there's a lot of.. in this particular neurodegenerative disease, there's a lot of hope. Actually,
Gerald Reid 09:13
there's
Dr. Terry Ellis 09:14
been a lot of progress in the last couple of decades, and Parkinson's is one of the only neurodegenerative diseases in which there is like effective pharmacological treatments, effective meaning like symptom controlling the drugs can dampen the tremor, the drugs can make movement a bit better, a bit bigger, a bit faster, so there you know, there are effective treatments. There's no treatment that actually slows the progression of the disease, of the disease, or cures the disease, you know, which is the big, you know, sort of holy grail, right? That's what there's a lot of research going into trying to understand, you know, how do we cure this thing. But you know, in the, in the absence of a cure, people with Parkinson's live, you know, they can live a normal lifespan, or close to a normal lifespan, and they, so that you know, the, the average age of diagnosis is early 60s, so people can live decades with Parkinson's disease, and so, and one of the things we, you know, we work closely with people with Parkinson's as physical therapists, and I think there's reason to be optimistic, and people can really take control, and there are things that you can do to optimize your sort of wellbeing and function, and you know, sort of day to day living, and so that's that's that's a good thing, you know, there's there are things, there are ways you can take control and things that you can do to optimize outcome.
Alexis Reid 10:51
I love that, and I think that's the ultimate goal for everybody, right? Like, how do we actually have a greater sense of well-being and functionality, especially as we're aging or dealing with any kind of physical or health changes that we have in our life, so I love this idea of let's, let's think about what is possible rather than just like getting stuck or feeling like your world is getting smaller because of this change in your life, and yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 11:20
yeah, and you know, and people, there's a.. when you first hear that, you know, you have a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease, it's very.. it's life-altering, right? That's a shocking.. it's like you have to sort of wrap your head around it, and scary,
Gerald Reid 11:35
I imagine. Yeah, it's
Dr. Terry Ellis 11:36
scary. It's like all the things I had planned to do in my life.. am I going to be able to do these things. What's going to happen? What's going to happen to me? What's going to happen to my family, and you know it. People, you know, deal with it in different ways, a different timeline, different, you know, coping strategies, but you know, I think that when people are able to get to the place where, like, all right. Hey, I can. I can. There are things I can control. There's.. I can do some things to help myself, and that's where I see, okay, you know, this person's gonna.. they're gonna.. they're gonna do fine. They're gonna.. they're gonna.. you know, they're gonna do well with this, and they're gonna be able to really sort of live their best life, you know, in this context,
Alexis Reid 12:24
I have a question. I imagine some of the audience might be thinking about, is where does Parkinson's come from? Do we know, like, where diagnosis may come from? Is it genetic? Is it.. I know you mentioned before, it might be biological or environmental, as most things have both components that lead to different changes in our bodies.
Dr. Terry Ellis 12:43
There are, you know, genetic mutations that are known, but it's only a small portion of people with Parkinson's disease have a known genetic mutation, like, you know, 10% or so. Most cases are sporadic and don't have a known, you know, genetic cause, so it, you know, there's strong evidence suggesting there's an environmental component to this, like people that have been exposed to, you know, high levels of pesticides or certain solvents, or, you know, these chemicals that are, you know, thought to be toxic, you know, it's difficult to pinpoint any, and you know, sort of one, or how much exposure do you need? When in your life, which kinds of chemicals, you know, those things are not known definitively, but we do have a better idea, you know, sort of now the, you know, sort of groups of chemicals that seem to be might be contributing, but it's not one factor, right? It's going to be, it's multifactorial, it's complicated, and
Gerald Reid 13:54
for that reason, I imagine, you know, I'm always thinking from the mental health standpoint, I imagine people may benefit from some sort of mental health therapy to really grieve that process. Yeah, and as you both are saying, like not knowing how or why something happens could really cause a lot of anger, perhaps. Yeah, yeah. And
Dr. Terry Ellis 14:11
then you think back, and what did you know? What could I have been exposed to, or what you know, is there something I don't know about my family history, or you know, whatever it is, and you know it's like you're right, like dealing with the unknown is much harder, I think, but I do think having psychological support, you know, for people when they get a diagnosis like this or something similar, you know, it's life changing, and I think sort of grappling with it and trying to wrap your head around it in a way that you can get to a place where you're like, okay, you know, what are the things I can do to help myself to sort of optimize my outcome, and
Gerald Reid 14:52
I imagine there's a wide range of emotions too. I don't want to harp too much on this, but you know, we went on. Talking to the students I supervise about doing therapy, you know, asking questions like, you know, what, what do you feel responsible for, that's hard, that maybe the person feels like is out of their control. So, something like this, you know, as you get older, maybe you feel like you can't contribute in some way for people in your life, perhaps it could be so complicated about what specifically is the reason the person's so upset, and I'm always thinking as therapists, like what specifically is the person holding on to that's really making them upset, and I think sometimes people in someone else's life might not be able to get to that, because it really takes a lot of deep exploration to know, like what specifically about this life-altering aspect is it that is really bothering you the most, and why, and what is it about, and what's the meaning of that? That takes some exploration. Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 15:48
yeah, and I, you know, I think it's very individual, right? I mean, it's very personal, you know. I do know, you know, from from working with lots of people with Parkinson's, many people talk about fear and the fear of the unknown. What's going to happen, and how is this going to progress? And you know it's not clear how fast or in what way. One thing about Parkinson's is it's, it's very variable. So one person with Parkinson's looks very different from another, so there's all of these symptoms that can manifest, but not everybody gets them all. Oh, interesting. When you don't know, you know what exactly is going to happen, then there creates sort of even more unknowns. People worry about, you know, financial stability, ability to continue working, being a burden to their family, who's going to, you know, how is this going to affect me and my family? So those are the kinds of things that I hear a lot from people.
Alexis Reid 16:56
Is there a test that identifies that, you know, I know there's a lot of symptoms, but as you said, that symptoms can be variable. Is there, like, one test that identifies that an individual has Parkinson's specifically?
Dr. Terry Ellis 17:10
Well, that's a good question. There's most of the time Parkinson's disease is diagnosed based on a clinical exam. There are certain tests, something called a DAT scan, so brain imaging that can distinguish things in the Parkinson's family from other things, but don't necessarily diagnose Parkinson's disease specifically. There are other things that closely approximate Parkinson's disease, and there are there now. There's like a skin biopsy test that can help identify Parkinson's disease in one of the other sort of atypical forms. So, but most, most neurologists feel like you can really diagnose this pretty well based on a clinical exam, so that's how it's done.
Alexis Reid 18:05
More self-report about experiences, yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 18:09
like a motor exam, a clinical exam. You can, you know, you can see tremor, the rigidity, the braid of kinesia, those kinds of things, and you know, and taking a history, and people will talk about their experiences and what they've noticed, you know, for their symptoms and how they've manifested the thing with Parkinson's is you can have symptoms for many years before you're diagnosed, so it's usually by the time people get a diagnosis they look back and they say that's why I had this symptom, or that explains this, or that's why you know, so it's not like, oh boom, one day everything changes, you know. This is very insidious, very slow. And then there's a certain point where people, you know, seek medical care, because they're like, maybe this is something,
Gerald Reid 18:59
and
Dr. Terry Ellis 19:00
it's usually how it happens,
Gerald Reid 19:02
yeah. In light of all this challenge that comes with this disease, not only on the individual but their families and the world around them. I want to just say, like, how incredible it is that you, you know, part of a program that helps train young people, or whoever is going into the field, to feel like they can do something to help you know, like the helping profession, nurses, you know, doctors, counselors, therapists, social workers, you know, people doing speech therapy, you know, all types of physical therapy, everything that's going on, and then Sargent College does such a great job of training really well at BU, and so, you know, just acknowledgement of like, how important that is, that there's people who want to get into this field and do something to help,
Dr. Terry Ellis 19:47
yeah, yeah, I think there's, you know, one thing we've learned is that, you know, because Parkinson's, you know, people live a long time with Parkinson's, and it's, it affects so many systems that it really. Requires a team, you know, and part of the team is the rehab team, and the rehab team can, like you said, include physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, and, you know, dietitians, you know, and more, you know, there's a lot of people, and we, you know, at Sargent College, we train, you know, people in these different professions, and I direct the Center for Neuro Rehab, and we specialize in the, you know, in the care of people with neurological conditions, specifically Parkinson's disease. So that's almost all we do is, you know, is treat people with Parkinson's disease, so we have lots of, you know, opportunities to train students, right? And one of my goals is to make sure that we graduate people, you know, at the top of their game, right, that can really go out there and make a difference, hit the ground running, they are, you know, well-versed in Parkinson's. They know how to care for these people. They have the latest and greatest evidence-based treatments to offer, and so, you know, that's something we're proud of, friend, and we want to, you know, sort of cultivate that. And because Parkinson's is very prevalent, it's a very prevalent neurodegenerative disease. It's, it's important to make sure that we have enough providers, you know, that are well versed in this disease, and so that's one of our big goals.
Alexis Reid 21:27
One of the things we say in the Universal Design for Learning world is that, you know, disability is something that anybody can become, right? It's like the one thing that anybody can experience at a different phase of their lives. So, it's so important to understand how these shifts and changes, especially physically in navigating the world, are happening for people, so that anybody in the stratosphere that they interact with can better understand it.
Dr. Terry Ellis 21:52
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Alexis Reid 21:54
And it's so great, you know, I'm thinking about it from an educational perspective in my work in executive function. I love executive function, so much because it impacts everybody. It's not just folks who have ADHD or autism or mental health challenges. All of us can have, you know, different cognitive challenges, the different aspects of our lives. For turns around, people with
Dr. Terry Ellis 22:13
Parkinson's disease, some of the early signs and the cognitive, you know, side that they can experience are issues with executive function, just things like, you know, attending for long periods and shifting attention from one thing to another, sort of planning, you know, really sort of that multitasking, or like a lot of organizational tasks, can become challenging, they can be subtle, but people depends on people's professions, you know, what their profession really entails, and how much executive function they rely on for a given profession really determines, you know, how much this will kind of impact them in their sort of day-to-day life.
Alexis Reid 23:00
It really struck me when you were talking about, you know, cognitive functioning getting smaller and slower, because I imagine, like, the automaticity that you grow and develop as your brain is developing over time, you know, the way in which we sometimes just plan or organize and do things, and then all of a sudden that just shifts, and your ability just changes. Yeah, yeah, and that
Dr. Terry Ellis 23:24
can be so frustrating, you know. Especially, you know, we see a lot of very just high-functioning people that are very successful, and you know, and then this is very.. this can be very scary, you know, and just, and you know, and again, this is something usually that only they notice, or you know, maybe a maybe you know somebody close in the family might notice, but but they feel it, and it starts to just weigh on them, you know, like, oh, how's this, how's this gonna go, and is this what's happening to me? How do I understand this? Yeah,
Gerald Reid 24:03
so much of executive function is like self-regulation, and being kind of feeling like you're in control of things. Yeah, and so it's really, you know, if we were to almost like go backwards in time, Alexis, you know, you work with a lot of young people, students, children, and one of the interventions is actually kind of to scaffold executive functions, so instead of having the person who struggles with executive function having to do everything by themselves, but to kind of create an environment that supports it, and there's some examples that you can use, you know, using different tools and strategies, like around them, the people around them, to support it.
Alexis Reid 24:38
I'm glad you brought that up, and I'm curious to hear what you have to say, Terry, because I've worked with a lot of young people who have had traumatic brain injury or concussion, sort of like, you know, adolescent years, young adulthood, and now I've started working with a lot of folks that are a little bit older, not necessarily those with Parkinson's, but, you know, when the cognitive decline begins to happen, there's. This natural progression that I see right as you're building executive function skills, there's a lot of extra effort needed, but then also later in life there's this decline, whether you're working as much as you had before in a certain position, and maybe you were retired and you're not using those skills as much, but I imagine in the world of an individual with Parkinson's again, like you said, that happens so rapidly, and from a cognitive therapeutic perspective, what have you seen to be helpful for those patients? Because this is where I
Dr. Terry Ellis 25:32
think speech language pathologists come in, do some of the scaffolding, like how do you, if you know, how do you in your job, you know what? What are the kinds of things you can do to just, you know, that maybe you haven't had to rely on before, but now if you use these strategies, you can function like you want to function, but it requires, you know, some, you know, intentional strategies to make this easier for you. There's also, you know, so much technology now, you know, that that can make people's lives easier, and so tapping into some of this, I mean, you know, that's a whole probably podcast in itself, yeah, but there's, I think, there's so many kind of, you know, strategies, aids, some, some, you know, technology that can help people navigate, you know, complex multitasking kinds of fields that, that, so that they can sustain it, you know, they can keep doing it and keep doing the things that they, that they love to do,
Alexis Reid 26:36
for sure. And AI and digital technologies and assistive technologies, I think, is a great on-ramp, but, like physical therapy, you know, we need to practice the cognitive skills in addition to having the assist to get there. So, tell us a little bit more about the research that you've been doing, specifically for the interventions that you've seen most. Let's
Gerald Reid 26:57
talk music. Yeah,
Alexis Reid 27:00
we always love talking. Yeah, so one of
Dr. Terry Ellis 27:03
the things that happens in Parkinson's disease is people lose this sort of automaticity of movement, and so, as in, like,
Alexis Reid 27:14
you know, thinking about moving your body or limbs in a certain.. like, let's say, just happening, for an example,
Dr. Terry Ellis 27:21
like you just walk down the street, you don't think about, you know, taking steps, or you don't think about how big your steps are, you don't think about swinging your arms, you don't think about the components of walking, you think about where you're going, or you're having a conversation with somebody, right, and you're just walking down the street. Well, people with Parkinson's disease, when you lose that automaticity, the walking gets smaller and slower, right? And the steps get shorter, arms don't swing, and you know you get this sort of smallness and slowness. So people, that's that, that's the loss of automaticity part of it, and so people then tend to do less walking, they walk less, they walk slower, so less intensely.
Gerald Reid 28:07
The
Dr. Terry Ellis 28:08
quality of the walking can decline, and you know, the overall sort of reduction in automaticity. People with Parkinson's can, when they think about walking, can walk better, they can tell themselves, okay, walk faster, stand up taller, take a bigger step, swing your arms, they can do that on, on sort of demand, right, but nobody can sustain that, right, that's very effortful, you know, you can't possibly keep walking down the street and say take a big step, take a big, so swing your arm, you know, you know, walk faster, you can't sustain that level, right? Because it's like, it's like, sort of
Alexis Reid 28:49
reminds me of like obsessive compulsive, like thinking, right, constantly thinking, yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 28:54
and you can't, you can't sustain that, like, but it's like when you learn, you know, when you learn to ride a bike at the beginning, when you learn to ride a bike, you're thinking about it. How do I stay up? How do I not fall? And do I lean this way, that way? I know how I'm holding on for dear life, right? You know, and you're thinking about it till all of a sudden it clicks, right? And it clicks, and it becomes more automatic. And when it becomes automatic, the part of your brain that's working is that midbrain, that part that controls automaticity, the meso ganglia. Yeah, and that's the part that goes awry with Parkinson's. And so you know, when you learn to ride a bike, the frontal lobe, or the front part of your brain, is very active as you're, you know, thinking about it, but then that activity in the frontal part of your brain diminishes as the midbrain becomes more active, as the task becomes more automatic. Well, with Parkinson's disease, now if you've lost the automaticity in the mid part of the brain, you can think about the task to make it happen. Been, but you know that's not sustainable, so we have worked to try to figure out, well, how do we, how do we improve that automaticity, and we kind of, music is a little bit of a workaround, and probably every listener can can relate to using music, like you might have, you might go for a walk with music or run with music, and you might notice that you, when the song changes and it becomes a little faster or slower, you automatically entrain to the music, you lock on to the beat without thinking about it, right? It just automatically happens, you just in sync with the beat of the music, and then you know a new song comes on, and all of a sudden you're, you know, you're running at that tempo, right? So this is something that happens because the auditory system is tightly coupled with the motor system in the brain and the brain stem level, so lower down in the brain as that auditory information comes in, it also, you know, sort of stimulates some of the motor tracks that are in close proximity, and that's why there's this like sort of tight coupling, you know, like when you hear music, it's almost like you're, you know, you start to tap to the music, right, you start to sway to the music, it's that, that's because of that tight coupling. There's also other areas of the of the brain, like the cerebellum, for example, that can be that can activate, you know, when you hear music. Now, so these areas of the brain, the brain stem area, the cerebellum, those areas are are are working fine in people with Parkinson's disease, so we can tap into these other areas of the brain that are not affected by Parkinson's using music, and then when we have people walk, so we play music, we have them walk to the beat of the music, so now they're in training to a certain beat, so we watch their walking, and we choose music and the tempo of the music that matches their cadence or is slightly faster, and so then they lock on or entrain to that beat, and then they can walk a more normal pace with bigger steps and better arm swing, and you know, without thinking about
Gerald Reid 32:23
it, do they get to pick their song? Yes.
Dr. Terry Ellis 32:27
So we're working with, we're actually working with an industry partner called They're called Med Rhythms, they're in Portland, Maine, and they have developed what's called like a closed loop autonomous system, and this, and we've been doing studies on this, and so in this particular system, you put these sensors on your shoe, and you carry a phone, and then there's information about your walking from the sensors in the shoe, like your cadence, for example, like how many steps you take per minute, that gets fed into an algorithm in the phone, so people on the phone, they can choose the genre of music they want, oldies, rock, pop, whatever it is, they choose that, and then the algorithm will then choose a song in which the in that genre in which the tempo matches their cow,
Alexis Reid 33:19
that's awesome, so
Dr. Terry Ellis 33:20
now they have, you know, they have like, you know, headphones on, and then the song comes on, and they entrain to that, and now they're walking, you know, at a faster pace, a little bit faster than they were walking, and now they're taking bigger steps, and now their arms are swinging, right, because they're locking into that music, and they're not thinking about
Alexis Reid 33:43
it. I just wanted to tap in. First of all, my brain is lighting up myself as you're saying all this, because I'm thinking about so many aspects. You know, I often say with executive function skills that we need to, like, my analogy is we need to learn our skills before we can build the music, right? Like thinking about learning an instrument, that you know, the thinking about all of the different aspects of what you're doing in a moment is exhausting, right? Cognitive overload is a real thing. Yes, anybody who's trying to hold on to multiple directions and do a thing, or where do your fingers go on a fret of a guitar as you're learning something new, you know, sometimes things come naturally, and sometimes they take so much conscious thought, and that could be so exhausting. I feel like any teacher or caregiver relate to like a day when you're doing a million things at once, so imagine that's what it takes just to show up,
Gerald Reid 34:40
yeah, just
Alexis Reid 34:40
to move in your, yeah, and
Dr. Terry Ellis 34:42
so like we're actually doing some experiments now where we put, we use this mobile brain imaging, so you put these like sort of they're called optodes on the head, yeah, and we can measure. Sort of the neuronal activity in the frontal lobe. Oh
Alexis Reid 35:07
my gosh, okay. I went from one of my office. It's
Dr. Terry Ellis 35:14
really cool, because we used to, you know, I used to, in the imaging world, used to have to rely on, you know, sort of fMRI, or, you know, laying in a scanner, right? Well, we can't really understand what's going on with walking if you're laying in a scanner. So, we, this technology, this advanced technology, which has been advanced by actually David Boaz, who's a professor at Boston University, is sort of, you know, the amazing sort of developer of this sort of technology, and has really world-renowned in this area, so we're fortunate to have him right there to work with, and you know, he's he's also involved in this work and studying what's happening in the brain with music, you know, and these folks with Parkinson's, so our initial data is showing that when we use some sort of auditory cue that people are in training to that and they're reducing the cognitive load in the frontal part of the brain, which we think you know is then making it less effortful, right, and more automatic. And so,
Gerald Reid 36:19
how does it feel for the people who experience that, like, what do they say? Oh, I'm just so curious, what their reaction? Yeah, they
Dr. Terry Ellis 36:25
really.. so, first of all, everybody likes the music, just in general, right? I mean, music, walking to music is fun, you know? It's like people want to walk to music, they want to choose the music, they want to walk to me, you know. So, so just.. just having music is sort of mood elevating, and you know, people go into it with a good mindset, and then when they realize, wow, like this is like my walking is better, like I feel like people walk more, they walk faster, the quality of the walking is better, the automaticity is better, and the thinking is
Gerald Reid 36:58
less,
Dr. Terry Ellis 36:58
and so they are really like they want to engage in this, right? They want to use this music, they want to, you know, understand this more. And I imagine
Gerald Reid 37:09
I imagine they're also just more, as you're saying, like more in the moment, almost like in the flow state of just being in the moment, and how just therapeutic just that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely in the moment. Yeah, and you had said something before we started this talk today about how exercise is so important too, so is that kind of a downstream side effect as they get more exercise from this?
Dr. Terry Ellis 37:30
Well, it was actually the other way around, because we know from our work and exercise, exercise, so there's nothing, there's no cure for Parkinson's, there's no medicines that slow down the process of the disease, the progression of the disease, but there is work in exercise showing a reduction in the severity of the symptoms that may actually indicate a slowing of the progression of the disease. Exercise is actually one of the most powerful forms of medicine for people with Parkinson's. I always joke I'm not
Alexis Reid 38:02
a, I'm not an MD, but my prescription for all of my clients is like we need to move more on. Yes, yes, absolutely. There's so many benefits
Dr. Terry Ellis 38:11
in the mood and so many other things function, all the things, but there is clear evidence, and so one of the things we know is that the, the exercise has to be at least moderate intensity, maybe even higher, but at least moderate intensity, and so one of the forms of walking that one of the forms of exercise that people like to do the most is walk. Well, if your walking is slow and not automatic and small steps, then you're not going to be able to get the benefits of moderate intensity exercise, but if you walk to music right now, we can get people walking faster, and the quality of the walking is better, and it becomes more automatic. So now what we prescribe is, you know, 30 minutes of walking with with music five days a week, and then you meet these sort of guidelines for exercise that has a health benefit in people with Parkinson's disease,
Gerald Reid 39:06
amazing. Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 39:08
now you know, exercise is hard for people, right? So now you've made it easier, you've made it more enjoyable. People want to do it, you know. In general, people like to walk, you know, and so now you're pairing walking and music, you're making it easier. People are more likely to do it, and they're seeing the benefit,
Gerald Reid 39:25
you know. And walking is such an important part, part of socializing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Terry Ellis 39:31
So, I think so. We're exploring this in two different ways. We're exploring whether walking to music like this, you know, helps with exercise. We're also, and another sort of path is, is trying to understand what about people with Parkinson's that have just have trouble walking, getting around in their everyday life, not necessarily for training or exercise, but for just now. Navigating, you know, is it possible to have to use music in the sort of background, you know, while you're walking to try to, you know, help you in train and improve your walking, you know, as you're just trying to get from point a to point b, so that's another, so it's we're tackling it from both angles, you know. Basically,
Alexis Reid 40:21
I'm thinking about a couple questions. Yeah, one of which is, is it the music itself or is it the beat? Like, if, if you can't listen to music per se, like going for a walk for exercise or leisurely or community purposes is one thing, but like you say, getting around just in your everyday life, if there were to be just like a beat to help, yeah, improve. We often use
Dr. Terry Ellis 40:45
it. We often start with a metronome, okay? Because it's a clean beat,
Alexis Reid 40:50
yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 40:51
just to see if people can entrain, you know? If we just put this on, and you know, we use just a metronome app or something, and you know, and just look at their cadence, examine their walking, figure out where it should come in, you know, for them, and then see if they can map on, and actually the music we use, if people fall off the beat, we superimpose a metronome beat on top of the music to help them find the beat again, you know, so they, because sometimes you can, they get feedback that they're
Gerald Reid 41:23
off,
Dr. Terry Ellis 41:23
yeah, they get feedback that they're off, that's incredible, and then so then the metronome comes on over the music a little more like loud, that's brilliant, so that it brings people back to the beat, wow, that
Gerald Reid 41:35
is so smart,
Dr. Terry Ellis 41:36
yeah, it's a close, like the system that we're using, that you know, Med Rhythms developed is a closed loop system, it's called, so it's personalized to the individual, so it measures their walking quality fed into the algorithm, right? The person's walking, and that data is continuous, you know, you get the information from the person back into the algorithm, like, do we have to slow down, speed up, AI being used for good for good? I'm thinking, like,
Alexis Reid 42:06
you know, even exercising, like you're going to.. I went to a bar class the other day, and we like are making the movements to the beat, but it takes a little while to get to that beat. But how important the feedback is.
Gerald Reid 42:18
Yeah, right, that's
Alexis Reid 42:19
often the missing part in learning anything, and especially in education, but it's so fascinating to think about that, the feedback loop, and how beneficial that must be.
Dr. Terry Ellis 42:28
Yeah, it's very, very helpful. I, you know, we're excited. In fact, you know, this company, Medrhythms, that developed this device, this closed loop, closed loop music device. We just received funding from the Michael J. Fox Foundation to study this on a larger scale.
Alexis Reid 42:48
Wow, so
Dr. Terry Ellis 42:50
yeah, we're about to launch a study this summer, actually, in collaboration with my colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis and University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and we're going to enroll about 160 people with Parkinson's disease across these three sites, and we're going to have them walk to Music with this device, and we're going to collect lots of data, and we're going to, you know, where they're going to use the device actually for three months, and so we want to, we want to have them come in at the beginning. We want to examine all the walking parameters. We do a very thorough exam in the clinic, and we also measure what's happening in the brain. And then we send them off, and we say, okay, we're going to give you this device, we're going to have you use it for three months, and then come back at the end, and we're examine all these things about your walking and your brain, and learn what happened over time.
Gerald Reid 43:48
Wow, if people are listening and they're interested in participating, how would they participate in this study?
Dr. Terry Ellis 43:54
Yeah, I mean, they can reach out to us, we have an email and a helpline, you know, rehab@bu.edu is our, our email address, where people can just leave their contact information, and you know, we'll, we will contact them, and we have to do a screening process, you know, which we do on the phone to determine whether people meet the eligibility requirements.
Gerald Reid 44:21
That's amazing.
Alexis Reid 44:22
This is another specific question, but I know I don't know enough about it, but I do know that, like, some frequencies and sound can also help on, like, a nervous system level to kind of calm our nervous systems and help increase mood. I wonder if that's an aspect of this tool as well, or, you know, we haven't
Dr. Terry Ellis 44:40
measured, yeah, I mean, music can be used in so many different ways, right? And we know that music is calming, music can boost mood, it can treat depression, you know, there's lots of.. you know, we haven't measured those things per se, but.. and.. and they.. you know, music might be used at a different tempo, you know. Different beat or different kinds of music for those kinds of things. We are focused mostly on music that has, like, this a salient sort of therapeutic beat, yeah, the beat that people can find easily, yeah, and that they can sort of map onto, you know, when they walk, but there's, you know, there's lots of applications for museums. Can you,
Gerald Reid 45:22
real quick, on that? What you just said, is there any relation to dancing, or is it just for walking, or that? Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 45:29
you know, so, so, because exercise is so.. it's kind of now sort of very well studied in Parkinson's. Dance was one of the first forms of exercise that was studied in Parkinson's, and, frankly, frankly, it was the tango, and so you know, the tango people who have engaged in the tango or other forms of dance now have benefited, you know, in many ways from from participating in dance. Now we don't know exactly why, but of course there's a music component, there's learning new skills, there's, you know, there's a lot of balance involved, there's you know walking forward and backward, so we can't, we, you know, we haven't sort of isolated what aspect of dance is particularly beneficial, it's probably multifactorial, right? So, there's multiple parts of that, but in general, people with Parkinson's might have trouble walking, and then they can dance really well. Is it those
Alexis Reid 46:32
who have danced prior to the diagnosis, or not necessarily? I mean, we do
Dr. Terry Ellis 46:37
see that, you know, we do see that people that have either a music background or, or they've been in the service, you know, so they've marched, they have, they're able to pick this up, you know, very, very quickly. So, yeah, it's fascinating, actually. Dancing
Gerald Reid 46:59
is so therapeutic too. Yeah, I mean, dancing, you know, dancing,
Dr. Terry Ellis 47:03
you know. And there's a big social component for dancing, right? So dancing is a win-win. Yeah, you know, people really enjoy that. It, you know, has so many benefits, you know, physical benefits, mental health benefits, social benefits.
Alexis Reid 47:17
When we think about the cognitive load aspect of, like, sometimes we're overthinking. Jerry has a great song about overthinking. Sometimes it gets us in our, in the way of just like being available to what we need to do. I just got a.. it's hysterical. I saw this. Somebody had a 32nd dance party button that you push, and for 30 seconds it has music that plays. I just got one for my office, because you know, sometimes when you get over, like, overthinking, or you get hooked on something for too long, it's hard to detach, and music is such a great way to kind of just, like, elevate, or, like, yeah, loosen up the moment a little bit to allow for that to happen, so I imagine, you know, again, you know, in the multifactorial perspective, and even thinking about how the brain is just so dynamic, right? We often think in certain segments, but everything is so connected. Yeah, so thinking about all the different benefits of doing this work, especially for those whose bodies are degenerating more rapidly than most.
Dr. Terry Ellis 48:19
Yeah, and I think because Parkinson's disease is multifaceted, yeah, and music has multifaceted benefits, you know, it's it's kind of a win-win, you know, it's really, you know, quite effective.
Gerald Reid 48:33
What are the..
Alexis Reid 48:34
I was just gonna ask, is this something I know that not everybody can have access to the tool that you're studying, but is this something that a lot of physicians will integrate into their treatment and work with diagnosis? Our product is
Dr. Terry Ellis 48:47
actually, again, I don't have any financial interest in this product, so I just.. and there might be other, you know, devices that are being developed, but this one is available by prescription from your doctor.
Alexis Reid 49:00
Oh, interesting. Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 49:01
and it's being now there's a code where you know insurance companies can be billed, you know, for this, and so they, you know, any doctor can write a prescription for this music intervention and send it to this company, Med Rhythms, and they will process this, and then they mail this device right to the patient's
Alexis Reid 49:24
home, very cool. Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 49:25
so it's, you know, that's one way to do it. I mean, there are, you know, simply even just trying, you know, like you can have a, you know, you can, the, you can walk to any music, right? I think the challenge of walking to any music is you don't know whether you know that what the beat is of the music or whether it matches yours or that sort of thing. An easy thing to do is just for people to walk, count the number of steps they take in a minute, you know, and that gives you your cadence. You know, steps per minute, and then let's say it's 100 100 steps per minute, and then you can sort of download music at a certain tempo, so you can download music, you know, with that's at 100 or let's say 105 you're gonna walk a little bit faster, and you can download music or listen to music at that tempo, and then walk to that as a little experiment to see, do I like this, does it work for me, you know, is this something I want to explore more. It's that, that's the home cheap version of so great. Make a playlist. Yeah,
Gerald Reid 50:39
my producer, Mike, is doing the production for this today, and he does my music, so we'll have to make a whole album, 105 beats per minute, every song is 105 beats per minute, and then we'll do another one, one beats per minute,
Dr. Terry Ellis 50:54
yeah, we usually try to get people to walk over 100 so like 100 110 120 in that range, and you know, so you can, you know, people can find music, and, and, and walk to that. We try to pick music that you know has a really salient beat, and again, that people can like easily find the beat, you know, so they can lock on more easily.
Gerald Reid 51:20
Love it, Terry. I just want to say, we say this to the people who come on here, and we, Alexis, and I always try to find people who we really respect, and as she said, when I met you, I'm like, this is just an amazing human being, personally and just professionally. So, thank you for dedicating your profession to a group of people who need help, and I hope that the people listening, maybe they know someone who's been affected, like there's people like Terry who are really trying to like spend their entire life to like do something to help, and that's that's a meaningful life.
Dr. Terry Ellis 51:53
Yeah, yeah, I have to say I've had a very fulfilling career in this, because I, I've really enjoyed working with people with Parkinson's, getting to know them, you know, as people, and I really feel like there's a lot we can do. There's a lot we can do to help, and you know, when I started in this field, more than, you know, maybe 25 years ago, I, we knew very little about the sort of the benefits of physical therapy, for example.
Gerald Reid 52:26
Wow,
Dr. Terry Ellis 52:27
now we have clinical practice guidelines published, you know, in Parkinson's disease, outlining the evidence-based treatment, you know, which is robust now for people with Parkinson's. So, in my career, we've seen just an explosion of research in this area, and it's very gratifying, because I think it's led to people - people talk about, you know, when you're diagnosed with some sort of disease like this, you're thinking about, you know, lifespan, but lifespan is not enough. We talk about improving health span, you know, so people don't want to just live longer, they want to live better, and I feel like that's what our jobs are, right, helping people live better, and I feel like we've done that over the last couple of decades, and you know, there's much more to do, I think we can go further, you know, with this, but it's been, you know, it's been great, you know, I've really enjoyed this.
Alexis Reid 53:23
I echo everything Jerry says, and I think that's so important, thinking about the quality of life and what you said. I think is actually probably more important than anything else, right? You see each individual not based on their symptoms or their challenges, but further humanity for who they are, and I think as anybody deals with any kind of physical or health issue and concerns, sometimes that can get lost, you can get lost in the treatment, get lost in the disease, get lost in the changes that you're experiencing, especially so rapidly and so outwardly, especially for individuals who have tremors or other physical capacities diminish, so I just appreciate you saying that in and of itself, let alone all the research that you're doing, because it can feel really lonely, and as you said at the beginning of the episode, life can feel very small. Yeah,
Dr. Terry Ellis 54:18
yeah. Well, I'm going to the World Parkinson's Congress in just a few weeks now, and it's this big congress in this year, it's in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a very unique conference. It happens every three years, and what's fascinating about it is that people with Parkinson's disease, and their, you know, care partners are invited to this conference, and rehab professionals, and clinicians, and physicians, and basic scientists, and everyone, everyone who is sort of involved in the Parkinson's world in some way, shape, or form, living with. It trying to treat it, helping people, diagnosing it, trying to cure it, everything. They're all at this one meeting, and it's.. it's one of my favorite meetings, because it's like you learn from everyone, and you know, and everyone's there together with the same purpose, and really, you know, and people with Parkinson's that are there make it real, right? I mean, there are people doing bench science, like, you know, doing work at the cellular level that meet somebody for Parkinson's there at this meeting for the first time, you know. I mean, that is profound. You know, that makes your work, that makes you want to dig in more, you know. So, and then people with Parkinson's disease are involved in either moderating, you know, moderating or chairing some of the sessions, and they, you know, provide their perspective. Yeah, could you imagine
Gerald Reid 55:49
if things and if aspects of society worked that way? That is an incredible model. It's an incredible model. It's an
Dr. Terry Ellis 55:57
incredible model about just like how we should be living right, learning from each other, accepting each other, you know, trying to see things from other people's perspectives, and you know that's how we should be, you know, navigating in our lives, and it brings you all on the same
Gerald Reid 56:13
team, and we're all working towards the same
Dr. Terry Ellis 56:16
goals, and you know, we all come at it from a different angle, or from a different level of expertise or life experience, but we're all there sharing these experiences, you know, trying to accomplish the same goals, and it's a, it's a, it's a conference that, you know, I really look forward to, many people look forward to this, and it's a, it's a great experience
Gerald Reid 56:40
that is beautiful.
Alexis Reid 56:41
It's a beautiful thing. I experienced something similar at the ATIA Assistive Technology Conference, which I was blown away by. Yeah, it wasn't just, you know, the technology companies or the educators, it's the people using the technology. Yeah, people who assist their life and to be a part of a community together, is, I think, what it is to be. Yeah, nobody can tell you more about whether
Dr. Terry Ellis 57:06
technology works, and the people using it. No, we need to bring people
Alexis Reid 57:09
in the room who are experiencing things, and, and I think visibility, acceptance, empathy, and just really being open to understanding other people and seeing each other, I think that's the progression of life, and how we do better in this world.
Gerald Reid 57:28
Well, it speaks to how you approach this too, because, as you're saying, the way that you're helping is a very interconnected way. If you were thinking from it from a very myopic, like narrow point of view, you may not be able to even come up with this idea, let alone, you know, understand how it helps people in multiple ways. Yeah, yeah, cool. Well, Terry, is there anything else that you want to share, you know, just some last words about, you know, what you've been doing your career, or maybe even for young people who might be interested in this as a career?
Dr. Terry Ellis 57:58
Yeah, I mean, for people interested in, you know, the rehab professions, I feel like it's a very fulfilling career. It's, you know, to be able to help people and to make a real difference, and in people's lives, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's good for them, it's, it's good for you, it's, it just feels like you're, you know, you're, you're doing something meaningful, you know, that's really, you know, helping people and helping people as individuals, helping, you know, people at a population level. It's one thing I love about this profession is that you can become a physical therapist, and you can do so much with it. You can work with, you know people with neurological conditions like this, you can work with children, you can work with athletes, you can work, and you can work, you can mix it up, you can do one thing for a while, a part of your career, and you can do something else, another part of your career, you know, it's the same license, right, and you can develop different expertise in different areas, so I'm somebody that sort of gets bored easily, so I need to be like stimulated, and you know, you know, and I need to be challenged, and so having a profession in which you can change it up and do different things, and then you know, you can do research, you can be in academia, you can teach, you can, you know, there's some, there's just endless possibilities, so, and you could be always challenged, you know, there's so much coming out, there's so much more to learn all the time. It's always evolving that keeps you fresh, right? Keeps you on your toes, it keeps things, you know, just exciting, and, and you know, I keep in, and to be like on top of your game, and to be able to bring this to the patient, like this is cutting edge, this is what we're learning now, this is very contemporary. This is the best science we have at this time, and that, that is really powerful, you know. And to be able to deliver the best care possible to the patients we serve, you know, is a really great thing.
Alexis Reid 59:57
That's beautiful. We try to end every episode at. You've already captured a lot of this, but I'm going to put you on the spot with a specific question, because I think we need more hope in this world with something you're hopeful for in your work, or anything you've been thinking about lately.
Dr. Terry Ellis 1:00:11
You know, I actually, bigger picture, a little broader than what I'm doing specifically, but I hope in this country that we can have a better health care system, so everyone has access to the best care possible. You know, we still, even the work that I'm doing, you know, some people have access to that, but not everybody, and you know, in a, in the United States of America, we live in a country where everyone should have access to the best medical care possible. That's, that's the hope that I have for our, for our country.
Gerald Reid 1:00:52
Absolutely,
Alexis Reid 1:00:53
it's a beautiful sentiment. Let's put it out there in university. Hope that all those who have more control come together and listen to these different perspectives, as you have the great honor to do at this conference you're going to.
Gerald Reid 1:01:06
Yeah, it's a
Alexis Reid 1:01:07
beautiful thing.
Dr. Terry Ellis 1:01:08
Well, thank you for having me. This is such a great forum to do this, and I've really enjoyed it. Thank you so much.
Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and look forward future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.
S8 E6: Using Music to Improve Movement for Parkinson's Disease w/Dr. Terry Ellis
Gerald and Alexis are joined by Dr. Terry Ellis of Boston University to discuss her cutting edge research on how music can be used to help individuals with Parkinon’s Disease to improve their walking and quality of life. In this episode, Dr. Ellis shares foundational knowledge about what Parkinson’s Disease is, how it affects the brain, and the way in which music can workaround the affected areas of the brain to dramatically improve a person’s quality of life.
Summary
An understanding of Parkinson’s Disease
How Parkinson’s Disease affects the brain
Parkinson’s impact on an individual and their relationships
Cutting edge music-based interventions for movement
The multi-faceted benefits of music and movement
Be curious. Be Open. Be well.
The Reid Connect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings, educational therapist, Alexis Reid, M.A. and licensed psychologist, Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by CyberSound Recording Studios, and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com
*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.
