Pedalling to fight Parkinson's Disease with Dr. Jay Alberts

Masters in Exercise

In this first episode of the podcast, I had the pleasure to interview Dr. Jay Alberts. Dr Alberts is an Associate Staff Member within the Center for Neurological Restoration and Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. His research aims to understand how the brain controls movement and to study movement patterns produced by different patient groups. Dr Alberts has pioneered the study of assisted and voluntary cycling on motor function in people with Parkinson's Disease. In this episode of the podcast, we talk precisely about exercise prescription in these patients. We start talking about the effects of exercise on the brain on people with Parkinson's disease. We also discuss the concept of forced cycling as a training strategy for these patients and how their medication can affect their responses to exercise. For those of you not familiar with Parkinson's, DBS stands for deep brain stimulation and Levodopa is the most common medication taken by people with Parkinson's disease.