La Nazione: Boxing against Parkinson's in Florence

From the ring comes a therapy for Parkinson's patients

The first clinical centre where boxing is practised against Parkinson's disease is born in Florence.

At the Centro Training Lab directed by Dr. Maurizio Bertoni, non-contact boxing courses for people suffering from Parkinson's started a few days ago, run by Italian middleweight champion Vigan Mustafa.

The 38-year-old of Kosovan origin, who won the Italian title on 2 February at the Mandela Forum in Florence, will challenge Stefano Abatangelo for the belt on 22 June.

But the boxer also attended a training course to join the Florence Centre's medical team to treat-train Parkinson's patients with this innovative strategy that Dr Bertoni imported from the States.

"As reported in the recent study from the University of Indianapolis, published in Physical Therapy, non-contact boxing training improves the quality of life of even moderate-to-severe Parkinson's disease patients. Physical activity of a certain intensity helps to slow down the progression of the disease,' Bertoni explains.

Boxing, in fact, is one of the most complete because practising this discipline develops coordination of movements, especially between arms and legs, and muscular harmony. "It is a useful discipline for the improvement of certain qualities that are often lost either through age or precisely due to neurodegenerative diseases," explains the centre's director.

It takes two sessions per week of training for at least two months to see the first results on the patient. "The slowing down of the disease makes everyday life easier: sick people are able to move and walk better, with more balance. And also from the psychological point of view there are improvements,' Bertoni further explains.

"The patient trains while having fun: the exercises become almost a game and during the lesson the patient almost forgets about the disease, feeling that he is part of a gym attended by many athletes," Mustafa explains.

The Training Lab, founded in 2008, is affiliated with the Faculty of Motor Sciences at the University of Florence and with the Universities of Pittsburgh and Ohio, with which it is conducting research on visuomotor skills in athletes and the use of Virtual Reality in Rehabilitation.

In the coming days, Dr. Bertoni will fly to the USA to forge a partnership with Italian doctor Roberta Marongiu from Cornell University in New York, who works with the famous Gleason gym in NY. "My idea is to expand the sporting activity to treat Parkinson's by involving other boxing champions, both men and women, because this 'therapy' is a serious opportunity to improve the quality of life for these patients," Dr. Bertoni concludes. NOTE: Dr. Maurizio Bertoni is a specialist in Orthopaedics and Traumatology.

His fields of interest are Knee and Shoulder Surgery. Dr. Bertoni is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition at Pittsburgh University, and a Visiting Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, for the Department of Sports Medicine, and at Columbia University in New York for the Department of Shoulder Surgery.

Dr. Maurizio Bertoni is Orthopaedic Consultant for many sports teams in Football, Rugby, Volleyball and for Tennis and Golf players. He is part of the Medical Team of the Italian Rugby Federation and is responsible for the medical organisation at international Rugby matches held in Florence.