For those of you who don't already know, April was Parkinson's Awareness Month. Our goal this year was to build connections and foster conversations among different stakeholders in the Parkinson's community. To achieve this goal, we set out to interview leaders from other ground-breaking non-profits in the Parkinson's sphere. At the same time, we reconnected with our local community in Austin, Texas by resuming many of our in-person fitness classes and hosting our first in-person social event since 2020.  As April comes to a close, we are excited to share all that we learned and accomplished during Parkinson’s Awareness Month. 

One of our proudest achievements this April was reopening our in-person classes at eight locations in and around Austin.  After two years without consistent in-person classes, we are overjoyed at the outpouring of support from local community members as we work to reopen our in-person classes and keep them open.  We are happy to report that our local classes have continued to grow, and all being well, we will be offering 11 different classes come June. 

In celebration of Parkinson’s Awareness Month we were able to host our first in-person social event in two years at the Northwest Rec Center in Austin. At first, we worried about the event's logistics and even considered canceling – but good thing we didn't! Our Parkinson's Awareness Month Social far exceeded our expectations. We had a fantastic time eating ice cream, playing bingo, exercising, and drawing tulips for the Parkinson Tulip Project with our local community. We were very grateful to all of the people who came out and made the event so much fun. Seeing our inspiring PFP participants connecting again in-person warmed our hearts. 

In addition to reopening in-person classes and events, we also set out to build connections and start conversations with thought leaders from other non-profits through our Powerful People interview series, sponsored by Supernus Pharmaceuticals. 

First, PFP Executive Director and Co-Founder Dr. Nina Mosier and Lead Fitness Instructor Lauren Lewis sat down with Robert Cochrane, a Ph.D. student at UNLV and creator of Yes, And… eXercise! (YAX), to discuss how improv can stimulate the brain in an entirely new way and create new neural pathways.

Robert spoke about YAX, an improvisational workshop for the PD community that he created after reading a study suggesting that improv classes can improve the symptoms of Parkinson's. Robert saw improv improve the confidence, creativity, and mood of his workshop's participants, but he knew that more research needed to be done on the impact of improv on PD–so he began studying the effects of improv as a Ph.D. student at UNLV. Robert completed a clinical trial of the effects of improvisation on Parkinson's in 2021 and plans to publish his results soon. 

You can watch the full interview with Robert here. 

Next, we had the opportunity to speak with Eli Pollard, Executive Director of the World Parkinson Coalition, to discuss the importance of bringing all stakeholders involved with Parkinson's together to ensure everyone in the Parkinson's community has a voice. During the interview, Pollard stressed the World Parkinson Coalition's commitment to making the World Parkinson Congress as accessible as possible to people from diverse aspects of the Parkinson's community.  

"What's really important is that all throughout the Congress, all through all of the sessions, there are people from all different aspects of the Parkinson's community," said Pollard. "We want people with Parkinson's and advocates in the room with the neuroscientists, with the clinical researchers, with the nurses, and the PTs, and the OTs, and the social workers, because that is where the conversation is much richer." 

You can watch our full interview with Eli Pollard here. 

For our last Powerful People interview of the month, Dr. Nina Mosier spoke with Ted Thompson, J.D., the senior vice president of public policy for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. During the interview, Thompson discussed the financial burden of Parkinson's and the importance of advocacy and investing in research.

Like Pollard, Thompson also stressed the importance of working in partnership with people from different aspects of the Parkinson's community. "Especially when you're talking about policy, doing it alone is very difficult but doing it in coalition is where we can make some headway," said Thompson. 

You can watch our  full interview with Ted Thompson and learn more about how you can be an advocate here.

 Overall, our greatest takeaway from this year’s Parkinson’s Awareness Month is that we can accomplish much more when we bring together people from all aspects of the Parkinson’s community, both local and international, scientific or otherwise.