Dr. Peter Tass, a professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University, thinks so. Yesterday, Dr. Tass spoke to my Sunday Mornings with Twitchy Woman group on Zoom. He started with some history about vibration therapy. One of the first therapies to be used for Parkinson’s Disease was vibration therapy using a vibrating chair and/or a vibrating helmut. This intrigued Dr. Tass, spurring him to investigate vibrations therapy for Parkinson’s.

He began investigating vibration therapy in primate models more than 10 years ago and published his first paper on the topic in 2012 “Coordinated Reset Has Sustained Aftereffects in Parkinsonian Monkeys.” P.A. Tass, L. Qin, C. Hauptmann, S. Doveros, E. Bezard, T. Boraud, W.G. Meissner: Annals of Neurology 72, 816-820 (2012)

Rather than trying to explain what Coordinated Reset means and what the implications are for those of us with tremors, I will refer you to an amazing blog post I just received from The Science of Parkinson’s written by Dr. Simon Stott, the director of research at Cure Parkinson’s in the UK. If you do not subscribe to this blog, I highly recommend it for everyone with Parkinson’s.

Why should you read this? Dr. Stott writes about the history of the use of vibration as therapy for PD and then goes on to explain all of the science behind Deep Brain Stimulation and Vibration therapy that Dr. Tass spoke about.

On a personal note, Mr. Twitchy and I went on Safari in Tanzania about 10 years ago. We noticed that after riding around in a jeep on unpaved roads all day, my tremor was much calmer by the end of the day. Looking back, it is now clear, after hearing about this research, that the vibration of the jeep had a positive effect on my PD symptoms. I don’t remember how long it lasted, but it was an unexpected bonus to the trip.

Here is the recording of the meeting with Dr. Tass.

Dr. Tass gives us hope for a therapy that will actually work. One that doesn’t involve more drugs or invasive surgery. There will be a few more studies in the next year and then, hopefully, the gloves will be available for all of us to try out.

For more information go to Dr. Tass’ website
For inquiries related to vibrotactile CR and study participation, 
please use parkinsonsvcr@stanford.edu.
If you would like to make a donation for this research, please contact Vani Kane ( vkane@stanford.edu ).

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Some other news from Twitchy Woman

I was invitated to be part of a panel discussion last week for International Women’s Day. Thank you to Richelle Flanagan and Helen Matthews for organizing the program Embracing Equity in Healthcare for Women with Parkinson’s. Each speaker was given a topic to talk about for 5 minutes. My topic was mentoring and advocacy for women. You can find it at 28:22 minutes into the program.

Have a great week!