Hunched Shoulders

One of the hallmarks of PD is having hunched shoulders and stooping over. About a year ago, (3 years post PD diagnosis), I was getting a massage prior to a race, and I didn’t tell the masseuse I had PD. He became obsessed with my shoulders and seemed to be frustrated with me that I wouldn’t relax them. I was riding the bike a lot, which was really helping my other symptoms, but after that massage, I became obssessed with the fact that my shoulders were beginning to curl forward.

I posted this on The Parkinson’s Fight Club facebook page, and found that many others had been noticing this as well, and there was no shortage of solutions.

Suggestions, included adding rowing into my exercise routine, to help strengthen the muscles that pull our shoulders back. I feel that this has been helpful.

In addition, a variety to stretch exercises. The one that I do the most is to get a long exercise band, stretch it out above my head and then circle my arms back so they are behind me, and hold it. Once my shoulder stretch out a little bit, I will move my hands a little closer together on the stretch band so it pulls back even more.

I don’t know if there is any research on this, but anecdotally I would think that being hunched over, and walking as our disease progresses may make it more likely to be thrown off balance because our center of gravity may be shifting and throwing us off…