Pickleball’s positive impact on Parkinson’s

A new study shows pickleball can have a positive impact on Parkinson’s therapy patients.

Physical therapy faculty and students at Creighton University Health Sciences Campus in Phoenix and Midwestern University in Glendale found that a six-week pickleball program helped individuals with Parkinson’s improve upper limb functions, making everyday tasks like buttoning shirts easier.

To date, no other study has analyzed the effects of pickleball on the motor and nonmotor symptoms of Parkinson’s.

Other key findings include: Participants were, on average, 20% faster at putting on, buttoning and removing a shirt after completing the pickleball intervention and continued to improve to over 35% faster a month later. They also saw improved grip strength and fine motor skills.

This study adds to the growing research on how exercise can improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson’s.

Jamie Nesbit, PT, DPT and assistant professor of physical therapy at Creighton University Health Sciences Campus in Phoenix, and Suzanne O’Neal, PT, DPT and associate professor of physical therapy at Midwestern University College of Health Sciences in Glendale, joined “Arizona Horizon” to share more on pickleball and Parkinson’s.

Through interviews with patients, they were able to deeper insight into how pickleball affected them.

“They loved the social interaction, the camaraderie. They love the competition, and so many people said that they almost forgot that they had Parkinson’s for that moment which was mind blowing to me. But also just improved, they felt improved their cognitive skills or balance. So they loved all aspects of it,” O’Neal said.

Nesbit shares that in addition to the benefits from exercise, patients also receive a benefit from pickleball that involves dopamine.

“Because of Parkinson’s you don’t have as much dopamine to use and that causes symptoms that Suzanne talked about, as well as a lot of non-motor symptoms like cognition, depression is really big. And so while we weren’t measuring dopamine specifically, we saw that mood was improved, the socialization was improved, movement was improved, fine motor was improved,” Nesbit said.