There's been many posts in the forum on the use of vibration therapies for PwP. People have posted on various non-invasive mechanisms such as physical movements, changing sounds, electrical and magnetic pulses, as well as the invasive DBS.
What these all have in common is that they add a stimulus to the CNS.
In 2010, Imark3000 and Rick wrote about the use of entrainment to reduce tremor:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...ht=entrainment
See also Audio-visual entrainment, at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio%E...al_entrainment
With the desire to reduce my tremor, I thought I'd try something in this area. My background is in computing, so it's easier for me to do something computer based. On the grounds that it's easier to program, I tried a different approach: creating the stimulus using strobe lighting only.
I've written a program which generates many strobe lighting effects:
- choice of frequency, color;
- different left/right images, which can have a phase difference;
- changes of frequency and colour with time and tremor.
There are over 20 parameters that can be tweaked.
Let me give the following warning:
- flashing lights are dangerous for some people;
- the images can make your tremors worse;
- the images can make you sleepy.
The program is online at:
http://www.parkinsonsmeasurement.org/toolBox/strobe.htm
I've set the parameters to give a taster session; running for 30 sec, the frequency starts at 6 Hz and decreases with time.
My theory is that if the flashing starts close to the Parkinsonian frequency, 4-6Hz, the tremor links to the flashing and, as the flashing frequency is reduced, the tremor follows, decreasing with time.
The reality is more complicated. The strobe effect on me is:
- in the first few seconds my tremor gets worse;
- after about 30 seconds of the strobe frequency slowly decreasing the tremor's amplitude starts to decrease;
- after 3 minutes I may start to get sleepy, and the tremor gets less than it was at the start.
I've not tested the program on any other PwP, so I don't know whether the effect on other PwPs is the same.
I would like to have measured the effect, but I can't get any reliable results.
I don't ask anyone to try the program. But, I would be grateful for any comments on the approach, especially the identification of any additional dangers.
John