How to Help Parkinson's Disease Research Using Three Minutes of Your Time

A Simple Three Minutes of Your Time Can Go A Long Way to Help Parkinson's Disease Research

Back in my biochemistry graduate school days, we commonly volunteered in colleagues' experiments.  Usually it was for free, for those requiring blood or other invasive procedures there was sometimes a small stipend.  Adventurous ones included eating chili made largely out of cartilage (not tasty, so you probably don't want the recipe), then seeing if breakdown products showed up in the urine.  This was part of a study that involved a project to develop a test to see if emphysema could be seen in urine, it wasn't product testing for cartilaginous chili.  The most interesting one I did was one where my blood was drawn, stored, tagged with a minute amount of radioactive isotope, and then were reinjected.  It was done to help develop a safer way to store blood.  The amount of radioactivity from this was much less than the amount of radiation I was exposing myself to while working in my lab, so it had negligible side-effects and allowed many jokes about what sort of superpowers we were going to develop.  While getting paid was nice, it was nice to know that you were helping humanity better understand how we're put together, and that you might be helping science to teach doctors how to better care for others.

Researchers at MIT and Oxford University are Collecting Voice Samples Everyday

This is an easy way you can help contribute to research and testing on Parkinson's disease. There are characteristic effects that Parkinson's has on voice; researchers at MIT and Oxford University are collecting voice samples from all around the world, for people with and without Parkinson's disease, to develop a computer analysis to detect Parkinson's disease by speech analysis.  Parkinson's is an often debilitating disease characterized by shaking, difficulty walking, slowness of movement and speech.  I've seen patients for it, chiropractic and physical therapy does not treat or reverse the disease, but we can help with the pain and balance, and help with home exercises to help improve the gait somewhat.  Medication is often helpful, more research is ongoing.  

You Can Participate! Researchers are Seeking 10,000 Healthy Individuals to Serve as Controls

The researchers are trying to get 10,000 healthy individuals as controls, they had 5,000 or so at last count.  They don't ask for money, the call is anonymous, but you can help in progress on understanding and treating the disease.  The numbers to call and more info on the study are here: http://www.parkinsonsvoice.org/

I called, it was short, less than three minutes, and painless.  

Dr. Ginsburg