What We Treat
Movement that takes more thought than it used to. A stride that got shorter without you deciding it. Therapy doesn’t change the diagnosis, it trains the movement, and that starts with a cause-first evaluation.
Sound Familiar?
Any of these sound familiar? Keep reading.
Why It Happens
Parkinson’s affects the part of the brain that runs movement in the background, without being asked. The instructions still get sent. They just arrive smaller than you intended them. That’s why the stride shortens, the arm swing fades, the handwriting shrinks, and why ordinary movement starts to feel like a task: your body is scaling things down without consulting you.
Physical therapy does not act on the disease itself. That belongs to your neurologist and your medication. What therapy works on is everything downstream: the size of your steps, range in your hips and shoulders, leg strength, how you turn, how you get out of a chair, and the cues that get your feet going again when they stall. Those are trainable, and training them is what improves movement, balance and confidence. It also works against the stiffness and lost strength that come from simply moving less, which often cost more day to day than people expect.
The Honest Truth
Nobody regrets starting too early.
How We Fix It
Every plan has an endpoint. Here’s what our four-phase recovery program looks like for Parkinson’s, one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, every visit.
Where we start
Pain
Pain is often not why people come in here. Rigidity is, or a stiff shoulder, or a back that aches from moving differently, and hands-on work settles those. The main job of phase one is measurement: stride, turns, balance, getting out of a chair, written down so progress is something you can see rather than guess at.
Once the pain settles
Prime
Range comes back into the hips, trunk and shoulders with hands-on work and stretching. Then we drill movement that is deliberately, almost theatrically large. Bigger is the whole point: Parkinson’s scales movement down, and practice is how you scale it back up.
Once motion returns
Perform
Leg and trunk strength, stepping and turning in tight spaces, walking while you carry something or hold a conversation. Plus cues you can use anywhere, a count, a beat, a target on the floor, for the moments your feet stop answering.
Before we sign off
Prevent
Gains like these hold while the work continues, so you go home with a program you will actually do, and whoever helps you knows how to help without taking it over. That’s the endpoint. We will also tell you plainly when it is worth coming back for a tune-up.
After I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in November 2025, I began therapy with Dr. Galloway. My movement and balance are very much improved. I no longer need a cane to walk!
Galen B.
Where we start: the doorway you have to talk yourself through
What we work toward: a cue that gets your feet moving again
Questions, Answered
Bring whatever you have and we will work with it. Notes from your neurologist help, and so does an up to date medication list, partly because putting your session in the window where your medication is working best makes the hour more productive. A new scan is rarely the thing that changes the plan. The plan gets built from watching how you actually move: your stride, your turns, your balance, and getting out of a chair.
For most people it is not only safe, it is one of the most useful things available to them. Exercise is among the few things genuinely shown to help how people with Parkinson’s move. The real caution is training on your own at an intensity that outruns your balance. Here a licensed physical therapist sets the challenge where you can hold it, stays with you for the whole session, and raises it as you get steadier.
It depends on what we find, and we would rather say that than invent a number before we have seen you move. What you do get is a plan with an endpoint: our four phases, Pain, Prime, Perform and Prevent, with goals written down for each, so you always know which phase you are in and what is left. Parkinson’s is long term, so care is often shaped as a block of visits, then a home program you keep running, then a tune-up later if you want one.
Book Your Visit
Request a time and a real person calls you back. No phone tree, no ‘someone will reach out.’ Just a plan.
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Five short questions. About a minute.
Step 1 of 6
That’s the hard part done. We’ll call during business hours to lock in your time.
Visit Us
Westbank, Marigny, Elmwood. Whichever is closest, you get the same care and the same number to call.
