Ping pong can help relieve symptoms of Parkinson’s

PLAYING ping pong can help alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a study has found.

Patients, some of whom had been living with the disease for years, who played one session a week for several months noticed significant improvements in their speech, handwriting, getting dressed, getting out of bed and walking.

Scientists believe that the hand-eye training and aerobic benefits of the activity could help counter the effects of the gradually reducing levels of dopamine in the brain that characterise the disease.

They enrolled 12 sufferers with an average age of 73 on a six-month course of once-weekly ping pong with a professional instructor.

Each session – tailored for people with Parkinson’s – lasted approximately five hours.

Participants took an average of more than two attempts to get out of bed at the beginning of the study compared to an average of one attempt at the end.

They also experienced significant improvements in facial expression, posture, rigidity, slowness of movement and hand tremors.

Dr Ken-ichi Inoue, who led the research at Fukuoka University, Japan, said: “While this study is small, the results are encouraging because they show ping pong, a relatively inexpensive form of therapy, may improve some symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

“A much larger study is now being planned to confirm these findings.”

The research was being presented this week at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Toronto, Canada.