January 27, 2006

Parkinson’s Disease conditioning program at The Villages gets startup grant

Mwezo Kudumu and Jane Kerr, founders of the Kujiweza Healing Arts Institute, a non-profit school dedicated to training instructors natural healing exercises, were awarded a start-up grant of $5,000 from the Parkinsonians Learning Lifelong Useful Skills (PLLUS) foundation and the Los Gatos Rotary Club to develop Parkinson’s Exercise Programs (PEP) at The Villages on Jan. 17.

Julian Rodriguez of the Los Gatos Rotary Club (left) presents the $5,000 grant check to Jane Kerr (center) and Mwezo Kudumu (right) to develop Parkinson’s Exercise Programs (PEP) at The Villages on Jan. 17.

Parkinson’s disease is an incurable disease that claims the health of 60,000 new patients every year and features symptoms such as tremors, slow movement, immobility, frequent falling and other severe balance and coordination problems.

The PEP will feature exercises designed to help Parkinsonians improve the quality of their health and slow the progression of the disease. The class will provide a total mind-body work out helping Parkinson’s sufferers restore lost functions by improving fitness, coordination, dexterity, flexibility, strength, balance, gait and posture, according to Kerr.

“Sufferers have problems performing simple tasks of daily living like getting out of bed, eating, dressing or grooming themselves, going to the bathroom, walking and talking,” said Kerr.“The classes are structured to deal with most limitations brought on by Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.”

The program will be initiated with a 12-week conditioning program study for the members of The Villages Parkinson’s Support Group. All persons with Parkinson’s disease are urged to enroll in this class. Non-residents are also welcome.

As part of their strategy for dealing with people that have movement, balance or pain challenges, participants can begin exercising seated on a chair and as they regain their ability, they can gradually move to performing exercises while standing.

The program will start February 6 at 2:30 p.m. in the Villages Golf and Country Club, in the Cribari Auditorium.

For information or to register by phone, call Jane at (408) 315-1179 or e-mail at JaneKerr@sjyogataichi.com or visit the website at www.sjyogataichi.com.