The Parkinson's Profile is a symptom tracker over time with severity.

Typically, we do assessments when the boxer is “on” their meds and/or DBS so the Parkinson’s Profile is an “on” medication module.  We are profiling the boxer in their “on” functional, daily living state.   What we see in the gym, and in their assessment, should match their capabilities and limitations outside the gym if they are taking their meds as prescribed. 

At the first PARS assessment, you can’t take the time to ask about every symptom.  It would take too long.  Tremors is the first section of the Parkinson’s Profile.  This is a great place to “train” our boxers on how the symptoms and severity feature works.  When rating the severity for any symptom, you can’t just let the boxer rate the symptom from 1 to 10.   Some boxers see every symptom as a 10 and some will minimize them. 

Tremors are a symptom which you as the administrator can see.  Ask how they would rate their tremor using two of the ratings from the  Insignificant, Mild, Moderate, Serious or Severe scale.  From what you see, start 1 severity lower.  If the boxer’s tremor looks relatively mild, you might ask them “would you rate your tremor as insignificant or mild?”  They’ll tell you if it is worse.  I would then say then “Moderate?”.  Giving them1 level at a time. 

If what you see matches their rating, you can have some confidence for their rating for the other symptoms.  If they under-rate or over-rate their tremor, you have to use your judgement on each symptom.   

When you move to the general symptoms page.  Ask “Other than tremors, what are your Parkinson’s symptoms?”  They might give you 2 or 3.  Ask “Anything else?”  Then, you might ask about the most frequent symptoms such as poor handwriting, fatigue, slowness of movement, drooling or constipation. 

Boxers don’t want to talk about constipation.  You might take them at their rated severity or you might modify their rating based of the tremor lesson you picked up on above.  For RSB coaching purposes, if they don’t mention their constipation, it is benign to us.

With the second PARS assessment, the Parkinson’s Profile opens with previous symptoms checked at the previous severity.  This is so you can instantly see the previous symptoms and severities to save time.  The temptation might be to ask “Has anything changed?”  Then ask “Any new symptoms?”.   For the checked symptoms, you might check with them saying “Last assessment, you rated Fatigue as Mild.  Has this changed?”  Use the adjective, not the number. 

DBS changes everything.  Instantly.  If someone is getting DBS, we try to do an assessment the week before, even if it is early.  Then we like to do an assessment at about 2 months.  Some things will change immediately such as tremors or dyskinesia.  They fall to 0 on the severity scale.

Because the boxer sees their symptom severity as part of the PARS AR, I have had several boxers ask about specific symptoms.  It seems that when we weren’t reporting the symptoms and their severity, we checked thing without asking questions, were just sloppy to some extent, or pretty much skipped over the Parkinson’s Profile because no one was using the information.  Now, with the PARS AR including the Parkinson’s Profile, we need to be more diligent and deliberate.  We are working on giving you the ability to edit symptoms and their severity directly.  We are also going to allow changing their symptoms and severity between assessments like we do for Stage.  Symptoms don’t just appear at assessment time.

For the short term, if a fighter wants edits to their Parkinson’s Profile, do a screen print, pull it into Power Point or any editing tool and make notes right on the image.  Send it to me and I’ll get it changed.

The PARS AR is the most informative document your fighters get anywhere on their functional daily living capabilities and limitations.  Even their neurologist can’t devote the time to give them a similar assessment.  Neurologists are concerned with the fighter’s diagnostic, medicinal and therapeutic state.   We are focused on the capabilities, limitations and keeping them safe in the gym and at home.  Different purposes, different assessments.  BTW, our fighters take their PARS AR to their neurology appointments!