September 23, 2021 @ 5:26 AM

BwP recently enhanced the Symptoms module to become a full Fighter's Parkinson's Profile with several changes.

  • The Parkinson's Profile has been added as part of assessments so you create a new record of the  fighter's symptoms with each assessment. This allows you to compare which symptoms the fighter has and changes in their severity over time.
  • We added a new Severity Slider to rate symptoms from 1 (minor) to 10 (major).
  • We organized the sections better.
  • We added new symptoms and changed the names of some symptoms to make things clearer and to follow professional nomenclature.
  • We enhanced the PARS Assessment Report to reflect the new information and organization. 

The Parkinson's Profile includes sections for Tremors, Postural and Gait, Assistive Devices, General PD Symptoms (16) and Parkinson's Plus conditions.  While the module is more comprehensive, with the use of check boxes and the severity slider, it still takes less than 3 minutes to complete.

The Severity Sliders are what allow us to compare a symptom from one assessment to the next.  If the coach and boxer rated a tremor as a 4 last year but a 3 this year, that is a marked improvement.  If they were a 4 last year and a 4 this year, that is EiW! (Even is Winning! For a person over 70 with a progressive disease, staying even is a good thing).  If they were a 3 last year and a 5 this year, they are losing ground.

Note that in the previous paragraph I said "if the coach and boxer rate a tremor...".  If you just ask the boxer to rate their symptoms, they don't have a point of reference and they will typically be overly hard on themselves.  The coach sees lots of boxers with tremors and can guide the boxer to the most appropriate severity rating.  Using tremors as an example, typically a level 1 boxer might be rated from a 2 to a 4.  

The Parkinson's Profile gives a coach an instant picture of each boxer's situation and they can anticipate what they might expect the boxer's limitations and capabilities to be.  This is meaningful when you hire a new coach, have a guest coach, when briefing a volunteer to work with a boxer, or for when we add visiting boxer lookup to the app.

The Parkinson's Profile is the only place a boxer or their family will see their Parkinson's situation at-a-glance.    My neurologist doesn't give me anything like it.  My physical therapist doesn't.  And certainly my Yogi or spin instructor can't.  It is a BwP PARS exclusive!