Anna Donnelly and John Guziec play ping pong at Lake Forest Hospital in a new program created for Parkinson’s disease patients. Ping pong has been a popular activity for generations with tables often found in family basements, dormitories and recreation halls. Now some Parkinson’s disease patients are using the sport to gain both physical and emotional benefits while having some fun along the way.
Hospital officials believe patients can get some assistance from ping pong. The National Institute of Health offered a similar conclusion in a study. The introduction of table tennis of was the idea of Winnetka’s Mike DeBartolo, 62, who created the Parkinson’s Players program at the Northwestern Medicine network when he started experiencing Parkinson’s-related symptoms about 12 years ago.
“Ping pong isn’t completely stationary, you have to move your feet a little bit,” he said. “It is one part exercise but it is cognitive too but you have to make relatively quick decisions with your mind where you are going to put your hand.”