The Concert Pianist

Here’s a video of 82-year-old Lucien Leinfelder, a retired concert pianist, who in 2015 was still able to play great piano concerts due to unfaltering muscle memory in his fingers – despite advancing Parkinson’s disease.

parkinsonslife.eu/sheer-wil...

[TheresaCurley]

WOW this is amazing. Thank you for posting this.

[lind-ane]

I have experienced the same thing. May it continue!

[Dap1948]

I was a professional pianist, and I was diagnosed with PD in 2010, so I have an interest in this video. What I note is that they say he is relying on muscle memory. However, our automatic muscle memory is what lets us down in PD. You can keep trying to use it but it needs to be supported by a lot of medication. I note considerable dyskenisia and also dystonia, particularly in his right hand fingers. Another approach is to work on neuroplasticity. This involves relearning each movement slowly and carefully with complete mental focus. Chris Lacey themercury.com.au/news/tasm... who carves chess pieces is an example of this approach and is now symptom free, and John Pepper has achieved it with his walking. Joachin Farias takes this approach with his work with dystonia patients fariastechnique.com .

[Hikoi in reply to Dap1948]

Daph

It's difficult to know about Chris Lacey, he hasn't answered the question in another post about medication now but he attributes his improvement to diagnosis, drug treatment and meeting others etc in this post . He certainly doesn't mention relearning every movement. Rather, as soon as he got on drug treatment it seems he was able to return to wood work.

wheelnroundworkshop.blogspo...

"I ultimately could only complete about five minutes of this light work (woodwork) before requiring lengthy rest periods. Also by this time, I was having difficulty walking. I could manage to walk around a single town block from home, but felt as though I was pushing a tonne weight up hill; my muscles did not want to work for me. My lower legs felt what I described to my GP as “spastic” (I now recognise that this was cogwheel movement of my muscles). Throughout I never manifested a tremor. I was always very tired and becoming increasingly apathetic –quite happy to just sit and do nothing (in absolute contrast to my normal almost hyperactive state). By now, I was averaging between two and three hours sleep each night and in a constant state of complete exhaustion.

When I arrived at a point in November 2011, where I was barely able to walk into my GP’s office, it was at last recognised that “something serious neurologically” was going on, and I was given a referral to see a Neurologist. By this time, I found concentration on almost any activity difficult; I have seen this referred to as “fuzzy thinking”. It was a further six months before I saw the Neurologist. It took him less than ten minutes to conclude that having Parkinson’s Disease was the only diagnosis able to fit all of the symptoms being experienced. The proof that the diagnosis was correct would be a positive response to the levadopa medication that he prescribed. This proved to be the case as my response to the drug Madopar was fantastic. My Neurologist also provided me with medication that is helpful in managing the anxiety and sleep. It felt so good to know what we were dealing with; we now had something we could learn about and begin to manage. I was not crazy after all.

I no longer have the hand/finger dexterity to make the Intarsia pictures in wood because most designs include very small pieces within them. ....?Therefore, I have taken up making beautiful chess sets using the best and very special, of Tasmanian rare timbers. The photos, I trust, speak for themselves. It is a wonderfully therapeutic activity, and extremely rewarding to be able make things of beauty, and even more wondrous to be able to say with total conviction that it is “thanks to Parkinson’s Disease” - without Parkinson’s it is improbable that I would have taken up this work."

[Dap1948 in reply to Hikoi]

He told me he has been medication free, for about eleven months I believe.