Parkinson’s, Moving Day, and my Grandpa Geno
Moving Day, an annual fundraiser walk for Parkinson’s hosted by The Parkinson’s Foundation, is coming up again at the end of this month. I learned about the Parkinson’s Foundation through my grandfather, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when I was in my early twenties.
When he first got diagnosed, the only thing I knew about the disease was the tremors, which was evident in my grandfather’s hands at the time. Then, in 2018, the Parkinson’s Foundation hosted an event with the goal of educating and providing resources. As our family was navigating the early stages of PD, it was a relief to be around so many people in this community - not to mention so incredibly educational!
So what did we learn about Parkinson’s?
Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative brain disorder where dopamine is lacking or gone, and is impacted by the substantia negrae.
The substantia nigrae is a small but crucial structure that lives in our midbrain, directly above our brainstem. It controls our motor skills, movements, dopamine, affects our brain’s chemistry, and houses two different sections.
The substantia negra pars reticulata: The cells that live here house a chemical called GABA (gamma-aminuobutyric acid), which inhibits activity in our brain cells. The SNr uses this chemical to redirect and/or stop signals that it decides should not be sent to our muscles.
The substantia negra pars compacta: The neurons that live here house a chemical called dopamine (you may have heard of it!). The SNc uses this chemical to impact our emotions, ability to learn, our judgement, and our motivation.
When this area of our brain begins to degenerate, our dopamine levels drop drastically. In Parkinson’s patients diagnosed with Stages 1-2 of PD, typically up to 70% of dopaminergic neurons have already degenerated. By the final stage of Parkinson’s, generally over 90% of the cells are damaged or gone. That doesn’t leave patients with much, if any, dopamine!
Progression of PD is very individualized, so it’s really hard to give any standard time frame, but the average patient experiences progression over the course of 10-20+ years. At the event, we learned more in depth about the five stages, mental and physical symptoms, theorized causes, and medicines that help manage it. But that’s all too much to put in one little blog post, so if you’d like to learn more, visit the Parkinson’s Foundation website!
After this event, our family began participating in a national, annual fundraiser called Moving Day, A Walk for Parkinson’s. The goal of Moving Day is to bring the community together, to celebrate movement (the number one management for PD), provide free resources, and fundraise for researching a cure.
2026 will be my fifth year volunteering at Moving Day, and my second year doing so in memory of my grandpa. It’s important to me to keep this connection with the foundation, even after his passing. Volunteering in his honor gives me the ability to help others who may benefit from the care and/or information that benefited our family in the beginning, and I think that would make my grandpa Geno very proud.
If you’d like to join Remedy’s Moving Day team, head to my Upcoming Events page. Thanks for reading :)
