SPOKANE — Hope Rolland is active, fun-spirited and open to opportunities. At 81, she thrives despite Parkinson’s disease.
On Thursday, Rolland agreed to a new challenge: being a participant in a mobility study led by Gonzaga University’s Department of Human Physiology in partnership with the University of Washington School of Medicine.
The study is under the direction of Clint Wutzke, an associate professor of human physiology at Gonzaga. He holds a Ph.D. in the field and has studied movement in multiple contexts.
This summer, he brought undergraduate and medical students together to facilitate a study on a disease that he said is under-researched.
The ultimate goal is to analyze how people with Parkinson’s fatigue differently in comparison with unimpaired people. Wutzke has 15 participants involved this summer, including seven who have the disease.
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons reported in April that Parkinson’s affects 1.5 million Americans. It is considered a progressive disorder, with both motor and nonmotor symptoms, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Specifically, there exists “damage or death of nerve cells” in the substantia nigra part of the brain, neurosurgeon Dr. Seunggu Han wrote for Medical News Today. That region produces dopamine, Han said. Without dopamine, Wutzke says, people struggle to move easily and steadily, leading to “bradykinesia, or the slowing of movement, and tremors.”
For Rolland, tremors were one indication for her neurologist, who diagnosed her in 2022. Often, patients receive their diagnosis via a process of “exclusion,” Wutzke added.
He looked for individuals between their 50s and early 80s, ensuring that everyone could “complete protocol” and was diagnosed at least six months prior.
Wutzke did not interfere with impaired people’s medication regimens. While other Parkinson’s research means taking individuals off medicine to “assess differences,” he has “ethical issues” with that, considering it may mean altering a person’s routine and quality of life.
Before the research began, the director spent a month preparing. He enlisted the help of his own Gonzaga students, Kate Barnett and Grace Fink, who both study human physiology. The students were joined by Mikala Haas, a second-year medical student at UW.
Rolland started her time at the lab with a questionnaire administered by Haas. The UW student asked general questions regarding the date, year and location. This is one way the researchers gauge participants’ cognitive abilities and exercise their “multiprong approach” to studying the disease, Wutzke said.
Following that, Rolland hopped on equipment that’s central to Wutzke’s research: a split-belt treadmill that’s “worth a Lamborghini,” Wutzke said jokingly.
Students then set up computers and cameras calibrated and dispersed across the room in order to collect various angles of Rolland’s walking.
Wutzke said this study is meant to learn more about the movement of impaired folks in the hopes of using this data and that from other research to, for example, develop a physical activity program.
