Laser pointers help freezing?

My son forwarded this interesting article. The transmission was not quite complete, but the source appears to be MSNBC. I’ve done a little cutting and pasting to try to set the paragraphs in sequence. Apologies for not crediting the author, but there’s no by-line.

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There may be help for Parkinson’s disease patients who experience "freezing." About 30 percent of Parkinson’s patients suffer "sudden transient freezing" that can leave them paralyzed for as long as several minutes. "For these patients, it’s like their feet are stuck in wet cement, and currently there’s no way to treat it," said Dr. Timothy Counihan, a neurologist at the University of Rochester in New York.

They try home-made solutions, from tape on the floor to flipping their canes around so they can use the curved top as a guide to walk toward. "Using such cues is a way of tricking your brain to tell your body, ‘Step over there,'" Counihan said. New help may come from laser pointers. "A laser pointer is an easy way to give yourself a visual cue."

"This is a very practical, inexpensive device that patients can carry with them. It seems to get them moving again."

The red dot that pointers project somehow helps the brain overcome whatever block it is that causes the patients’ movements to freeze in the first place, doctors said.

Counihan told a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Toronto a patient stumbled onto the idea. Stan Clark of Old Forge, New York, said he suffered from the common but frustrating freezing of the legs that no amount of willpower can overcome.

Like other Parkinson’s patients, he found that thinking about stepping over a pattern on the floor or a crack in the sidewalk could get him moving again.

He tried home-made remedies, including etching a line in his glasses and shining a flashlight beam on the floor. Then he tried the laser. "I looked at the laser spot, and my feet just seemed to go to it," he said. Clark told his doctors, Counihan and Dr. Lin Zhang, about his discovery. They gave laser pointers to six other patients.

Three patients improved an average of 30 percent, while one patient found her freezing condition became worse, perhaps because she was concentrating so much on using the device, Counihan said. Two other patients had no freezing episodes during which to try the pointer.

Counihan said a larger study is needed.