MOVE for Parkinson's

MOVE for Parkinson's We believe everyone deserves access to skilled multidisciplinary care

A program dedicated to improving access and reducing barriers for people with Parkinson's via a comprehensive "brain to toes" approach led by speech, OT & PT experts.

06/01/2026

Caption for the hallelujah post:

This is what our community is celebrating right now.

Not milestones. Not breakthroughs. Just the real, everyday stuff that matters more than it sounds.

Community keeping them strong. Spring flowers and finally getting back in the garden. Movement that's become a daily non-negotiable. Time with the people they love. New tools to keep them going. Work and purpose that still means something. And real-world wins that remind us all why we show up.

This is what early action looks like from the inside. It doesn't always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like getting outside. Like calling a friend. Like doing the hard thing anyway and feeling it work.

We get to hear these hallelujahs every single cohort. And every single time, they remind us what we're actually here for.

What's your hallelujah this week? ⬇️

May is National Speech-Language-Hearing Month and if you know someone with Parkinson's disease who hasn't seen an SLP ye...
05/16/2026

May is National Speech-Language-Hearing Month and if you know someone with Parkinson's disease who hasn't seen an SLP yet, this one's for them.

Speech-language pathologists don't just treat voice. They treat the full system, from the way the brain organizes a thought, to the way the body protects the airway during a swallow. Cognition. Language. Speech. Voice. Breath. Swallowing. All six are affected by PD. All six are treatable.

You don't need to wait for symptoms to get bad. You don't need to wait for a doctor to bring it up. A PD diagnosis is reason enough to ask for a referral. The earlier, the better.

Swipe through to see what SLPs actually do in Parkinson's care. Then tag someone who needs to see this. 👇

04/30/2026

"To fill it. I just want people here all the time."

That was the vision from the very beginning, and we meant it.

Our first cohort was a small group in Westmont in June 2025. We didn't know exactly what we were building yet. We just knew it needed to exist.

Since then, we've moved into the Madison Meadow Athletic Center in Lombard, completed three full research cohorts, and watched something real take root — in the room, and in the people inside it.

That room doesn't fill itself. It fills because communities like Lombard choose partnerships that offer people living with Parkinson's access to expert, evidence-based care close to home. That choice matters more than we can say.

This year, we're doing the work that comes after proof of concept: developing and refining our education and training materials, asking harder questions, and building toward a program that can spread.

We believe m.o.v.e. is something special. Not because we built it, but because of what we've seen it do, and because of the partners who believe in it too.

Today marks the close of Parkinson's Awareness Month. To everyone who shared a post, showed up to a session, supported a loved one, or simply learned something new this April — thank you. Awareness is where it starts. Community is where it grows.

Our next cohorts kick off in June and October. The room is filling up. Join the m.o.v.e.ment.

📩 Link in bio to learn more or get involved.

04/25/2026

The research is clear: exercise matters enormously for people living with Parkinson's. But showing up is hard to do alone.

That's what m.o.v.e. is built for, a structured, evidence-informed program where every session is designed with your nervous system in mind, and every room is full of people who get it.

June registration is open. We'd love to have you.

📋 Register at movefound.org.

04/24/2026

In Parkinson's disease, the automatic systems that once ran movement in the background begin to fade. The swing of an arm. The length of a stride. The lift of a foot. Things that used to happen without thinking now require thinking, every single time, and sometimes worse than others.

That's not a failure. That's the biology. And it's exactly why cueing matters.

Visual cues. Tactile cues. Verbal cues. Delivered in the moment, tied to real movement, repeated until the body starts to trust them and participants start to remember them. Research tells us that external cues can bypass the damaged basal ganglia circuitry and recruit alternative motor pathways, giving the brain a workaround it can actually use.

Here's what the research can't fully capture: what it feels like when a cue lands in the middle of a room full of people working just as hard as you are. The correction meant for one person ripples outward. Everyone adjusts. Everyone improves. Nobody is alone in the effort.

That's the quiet power of group-based exercise for Parkinson's done well. The cue finds you. The group carries you.

And it doesn't stop when class ends. We teach care partners, family members, and friends the same principles, because the most powerful cue of all might be the one that comes from someone who loves you, at home, in the middle of an ordinary moment. Understanding this biology isn't just for clinicians. It's for everyone who shows up for someone with Parkinson's.

This is why we show up.

🧠☀️

04/23/2026

Every time an activator pole makes contact with the ground, something important happens — your body gets information.

Where am I in space? Is my arm swinging? Is my rhythm holding?

This is biofeedback. And it's not a clinical concept, it's physics meeting intention. That grounded contact travels up through your hands and into your nervous system as real-time confirmation of what your body is doing.

For people with Parkinson's, this matters in a specific way. PD can quietly change the way we perceive our own movement, like how big a step feels versus how big it actually is, how much we're rotating, whether our pace is as steady as it seems. This is called reduced proprioceptive acuity. This perceptual mismatch it's one of the less-talked-about ways PD shapes daily life.

One of the patterns most affected is contralateral swing, the natural coordination of opposite arm and leg moving together. Right foot forward, left arm forward. Arm swing is something most of us do without thinking, but PD can reduce or dampen that motion over time. When arm swing decreases on one side, it doesn't just affect the arms, it changes the whole rhythm of walking.

Tools that provide external sensory feedback (sound, rhythm, tactile input, resistance) can help bridge that gap. Not by compensating for what's harder, but by sharpening the signal that's already there.

Activator poles are one of those tools. When used intentionally, they prompt each arm to participate actively with each stride, reinforcing that opposite arm-leg pattern, encouraging upright posture, and giving each step a point of reference your nervous system can actually use.

You're not leaning on them. You're listening to them.

We're grateful to partner with friends Just Right at Home
https://justright-athome.com/

Reach out to Julee if you'd like to learn more about incorporating poles into your practice.

04/22/2026

Meet Coach Nicole. Physical therapist. Principal researcher at m.o.v.e. The person on our team who digs deepest into the science of why everything we do works.

And as you can see, a mom who will move mountains for those two boys.

Nicole doesn't just study volition. She lives it. Every intentional choice, every early morning, every sacrifice that doesn't feel like a sacrifice because the reason behind it is clear. That is volition in its most human form. The science has a name for it. Most people just call it love.

This is the lens we want you to try on today: find your why.

Not the abstract version. The specific, face-you-can-picture, reason-that-gets-you-out-of-bed version. Research tells us that a strong sense of purpose is one of the most powerful protective factors we have against cognitive decline. But purpose isn't a concept. It's a person. A practice. A passion. Something that makes the hard work feel like the only logical thing to do.

For people living with Parkinson's disease, finding and holding onto that why is not just emotionally important, it is clinically significant. It changes how you move. How consistently you show up. How hard you push when pushing is hard. Purpose doesn't cure anything. But it changes everything about how you fight.

Our coaches bring their whole lives to this work. Their research. Their expertise. Their families. Their reasons.

What's yours?

💛

Your muscles and your brain are in constant conversation. Exercise is what keeps that conversation going.When you move, ...
04/21/2026

Your muscles and your brain are in constant conversation. Exercise is what keeps that conversation going.
When you move, your body releases BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) a protein that feeds, protects, and supports the very neurons most vulnerable in Parkinson's disease. The dopamine-producing cells in the substantia nigra that Parkinson's works hardest to erode are the ones BDNF works hardest to protect.

A 2024 systematic review confirmed that exercise therapy significantly raises BDNF levels in people with Parkinson's disease, and those increases were linked to real improvements in motor function, balance, and mobility.

This is why exercise isn't just good for your body in PD. It is a biological intervention. It reaches inside the nervous system and does something for which there is no substitute.

You don't need a laboratory to access this. You need to show up and move, consistently, intentionally, with amplitude and purpose.

The message your body sends your brain every single time? Resilience, right down to the cell.

🧠 📖 Kaagman et al., Brain Sciences, 2024 — link in bio.

04/20/2026

There are places that just get it, and is one of them.

The principles that drive results at OTF are some of the same principles that sit at the heart of what we teach at m.o.v.e. Large movement. Intentional effort. The kind of consistency that compounds over time. It is no accident that this community has been such a meaningful part of my own personal movement journey. What happens in that room matters — not just for fitness, but for long-term health, neurological resilience, balanced mood, and the kind of aging we all want.

Coach Mickey (an absolute queen) put it perfectly: less really is more. Forty-five seconds of your absolute all. That's it. That's the ask.

Here's what we want you to sit with: your all is not a fixed number. It shifts. Day to day. Hour to hour. Some days your all looks like a sprint. Some days it looks like showing up and doing the work when every part of you would rather stay home. Both count. Both matter.

Max out. Get out. And then come back and do it again. That is living with volition.

The effort is the practice. Practice is the point. Keep showing up to the spaces that support you, because every time you do, you are choosing your future self.

🧡 So here's your challenge: find 45 seconds today and give it everything you've got. That's all. Just 45 seconds. You can do this. With volition. 🧡

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500 E. Wilson Ave.
Lombard, IL
60148

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