New Treatment Program Helps One Lincoln Man With Parkinson's Disease

LINCOLN, Neb. For those who have Parkinson's disease, communicating with the people they love can be a daily struggle.

There's no cure for the disease and the people who live with it have to find treatment that can alleviate their symptoms.

78-year-old Steve Gains says he was crawling up his own stairs before he did the LSVT Big and LSVT Loud program at CHI St. Elizabeth in Lincoln. The four week program is a new treatment for Parkinson's that he says helped him walk again.

"Wonderful. I had given up in a manner of speaking. If it hadn't been for my wife and family, I would have gone downhill much faster, but when that came about when I had that change. It was literally as I have said millions of times being born again," said Gains.

St. Elizabeth's now offers these two four-week programs that focus on speech and movement. Therapists teach techniques to Parkinson's patients designed to help improve brain functioning.

Polly Ubben is a speech therapist at CHI St. Elizabeth and she says this program has developed in the last four years. Ubben worked with Gains just two years ago on his voice. "The Lee Silverman Voice Program or LSVT is actually the first speech therapy with level one evidence that shows it is effective in treating Parkinson's. It's one of the first pieces of evidence that shows we can also change brain reorganization," said Ubben.

St. Elizabeth's therapists say research shows it takes four weeks to re-calibrate the brain, which is why it could help other Parkinson's patients, the way it helped Gains.

Ann Andrews is a physical therapist who worked with Gains just a few months ago and she says Gains has already come a long way. "He identified four activities that we worked on and he improved with each activity with that with efficiency, time and with his movements. He's walking much better, his balance is better he's walking straighter and quicker," said Andrews.

For Gains, he now knows how to keep moving forward not just with his body but with his mind.

Steve Gains said,"Getting better. It's something you don't give up. I do it every day religiously," said Gains.

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New Treatment Program Helps One Lincoln Man With Parkinson's Disease