Charting Your Course is designed as a four-week introduction to Parkinson’s, with one lesson scheduled for each day. However, just as your Parkinson's journey is personal and unique to you, Charting Your Course allows you to choose your pace and is totally flexible. You will have access to all four weeks of content as soon as you register, and you can walk through the content in any order you wish. 

After 16 years of working to help people live well with Parkinson’s, we know those three life-changing words — "You have Parkinson's." — don’t have to mean giving up on the kind of life you imagined for yourself or your family. Charting Your Course will help you understand why. 



Week One-Mindset 

In the first week of Charting Your Course, we focus on mindset because we know that the people who are living their best lives with Parkinson’s are doing so in large part due to their mindset. These are the individuals who received their diagnosis and then made the decision to not let it ruin their life. Sure, maybe they spent a few days or months (maybe even years) getting to a place of acceptance, but once they did, they have been living lives that inspire others in numerous ways. 

Week Two-Movement 

In the last decade, research studies and clinical experience have upgraded the importance of exercise to treat people with Parkinson’s from a “nice to have” activity to an essential way to help manage symptoms and maintain quality of life. Exercise can improve everything from your mood to fatigue, muscle stiffness, tremor, constipation, and more. This week, we’ll explore all the ways exercise is medicine for people with Parkinson’s. 

Week Three-Symptoms 

This week provides an overview of Parkinson’s, with videos from Parkinson’s experts and advice for managing common symptoms such as pain, constipation, fatigue, depression and anxiety, and more. 

Week Four-Treatments 

As early as a decade ago, physicians would tell people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s to take their medication, rest, and return in six months. While they didn’t know it at the time, that was far from the best advice to give. Today, doctors know better. Well, some do. They know that exercise is medicine for the brain, that surgical therapies shouldn’t be a last resort, that complementary therapies not only improve symptoms but bring about joy, and that people with Parkinson’s have a LOT of control over their lives and how healthy, joyful, and meaningful they can be despite their diagnosis. During the fourth week of Charting Your Course, we dive deep into all of the treatments available for Parkinson’s, and we offer many resources to help you determine which ones you’d like to explore.