Content provided by Good Samaritan Society.
It started with a simple finger tremor. Everette Walker’s mother had Parkinson’s disease, so a twitch of the finger was enough to raise a red flag for his wife.
“I was kind of watching to wait and see. His finger, just one finger, would tremor,” says Karla Brooks, Everette’s wife. “Then we moved, and it just hit him like that.”
Soon Everette had to be helped out of a chair, out of a car and out of his bed. As he deteriorated physically, he became depressed. Then his doctor gave him a prescription for a physical therapy treatment.
The program Everette was prescribed is Lee Silverman Voice Training BIG (LSVT BIG). Four days a week for a month, he attended the hour-long therapy sessions. Since then, he has kept up with the exercise routine. Along with continuing to exercise, he started eating healthier and found ways to stimulate his brain. “I have my husband back,” says Karla. “He would have been in a nursing home because I couldn’t physically take care of him, but I can now.”