Goodbye Parkinson's, Hello life!: The Gyro–Kinetic Method for Eliminating Symptoms and Reclaiming Your Good Health

by Alex Kerten, David Brinn

Parkinson’s Disease, a disorder of the central nervous system, affects 1 million people in America and 10 million worldwide. In Goodbye Parkinson’s, Hello Life! Alex Kerten presents his breakthrough holistic technique that combines dance therapy, behavior modification, and martial arts, to prove that there is life beyond the diagnosis of PD. Goodbye Parkinson’s, Hello life! received "Recommended Reading" status by the Michael J. Fox Foundation and listings on the National Parkinson's Association social media sites.
Those who follow Kerten's techniques and are committed to becoming “Parkinson’s warriors” can succeed in eliminating many, if not most, of their symptoms and return to a productive and fulfilling life. Instead of viewing themselves as Parkinson's victims, the methods in Goodbye Parkinson’s, Hello life! will lead them to become healthy people with Parkinson's. Includes 20 easy-to-follow exercises.

250 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 29, 2015

Reviews

[Caitlyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of thoughts on this book, but the first one that comes to mind is that it was about twice as long as it needed to be. So much repetition and so many filler stories, it started to remind me of an infomercial bombarding me with how totally legitimate and useful this approach would be. It would actually be more convincing if it was half as long because then I would feel like I was being given advice instead of being sold something. This book is really interesting but just has such bad vibes.

I think there's a lot here that's genuinely useful and encouraging. The theme is essentially that anxiety and hopelessness play a bigger role in Parkinson's than we realize, and by changing our mental "scripts" with changes to both internal monologue and external body forms we can overcome symptoms. I think there's probably a great deal of truth to that. With my natural distrust of doctors, it resonated with me when Alex described how doctors see you and measure you once and prescribe more drugs rather than suggesting physical and mental exercises that may relieve symptoms without harsh side effects.

However, I think this book goes too far in the opposite direction. I hesitate to recommend this book to my relatives because there's a thread of victim blaming throughout. Obviously there's an element of needing to do the important work oneself, not allowing anxiety and fear to take over and keeping up on exercises even when things are going well, but some of the phrases used seemed more hurtful than helpful. I wish I'd copied some of them down because I listened to this as an audio book and can't find things again, but there's this attitude of "you let yourself get Parkinsonian by acting like you have Parkinson's" that I felt kind of kicks people while they're down.

I am going to be copying out some notes from the book, mostly the exercises with conducting and rhythmic dancing, because I think they could be really useful and effective. I also think considering how to grapple with fear and its effects on behavior is worth exploring, and I'll seek out more resources that cover it more sensitively. Rather than recommend this entire book to my loved ones, I'm going to try and take what I thought was most helpful and pass on the advice without the vibes.

[Meta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book would be helpful for people in the very beginning stages of the disease.
It is an interesting read, but not applicable for the person who is already in the advanced stages of the disease.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

1) Uplifting
2) Practical
3) Accessible and liberating
Enjoyment: 4

Pretty hip: A quote from En Vogue? (p. 38, "Free your mind and the rest will follow.")

This book shows us the power of behavior's influence on combating Parkinson's disease. This is a physiological perspective advocating for mental healthiness and movement therapies, rather than traditional psychological or biological medicine. In this respect, this could be interpreted as an alternative therapy, although one that comes with decades of Kerten's experience with studying and treating Parkinson's "warriors." I suggest starting with Section 1 but then reading Section 4's Appendix which includes concise but additional science, neurological, contextual information...Then continue with Section 2 where the practical work begins with Kerten's exercise techniques.

Section 2 could contain stronger photographs of Kerten visually describing the exercises. Although the used photos are expressive and abundant, they sometimes appear unnecessary and redundant when they don't specifically look like what's being described.

The authors, Kerten with Brinn, have included for fun along the lower right pages of Section 2's "Exercises for Life" a small flip book of images of Kerten's movements. Don't miss this!

[Gabriela · Rating 1 out of 5]

I cannot believe this book was published. Telling Parkinson’s patients to just “be in the present” and “change the script” of their brains is like telling people with depression to just look outside and enjoy the day. Considering that Parkinson’s increases anxiety symptoms, you cannot just tell your brain not to feel anxiety. While I agree that having a positive mindset helps, there are many symptoms that cannot be fixed by being less anxious and “living the present”.

The “exercises” are not such. They have no specific instructions or specific movements to follow, but just things like “play some upbeat Latin music and let your body move”. The photos included in the book, which are many, do not actually show anything because there’s no particular movement to follow. They’re just photos of the author doing random movements, and are completely unnecessary.

I’m angry at this book because it keeps implying that Parkinson’s is not that bad of you have the right mindset. In the case of Parkinson’s, I don’t buy the whole “think positive and your life will change” thing. It’s more complex than that and the author should know it.

[Kimlien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be read by every single person on earth. It’s tremendously helpful if you know someone who is living with Parkinson’s like I do, but also if you are wearing yourself down by over doing and not valuing rest and self care (self love). Most people don’t know they’re burning out their nervous system until something happens to slow them down and they can’t fight their way out of it. You have to completely change the standard way you function in life. You have to stop ignoring the signals your body is giving you and create new ways of being. A lot of the information in the book will be new and foreign to some people and others will be constantly nodding their head in agreement with every page. The combination of what Alex has created though is unique and a gift.

[Philip D. Hilger · Rating 5 out of 5]

mind and body group therapy at the VA.

This book help to reenforce what the VA was teaching. You never want to spiral down because of PD, but find ways to work through it by changing the brain.