LSVT BIG in Abilene
Your movements have been getting smaller for a while, and you are usually the last person to notice it.
What is LSVT BIG?
Parkinson’s shrinks movement. Steps get shorter, arm swing fades, handwriting tightens, turning becomes a series of small shuffles, and standing up out of a chair takes three tries instead of one. The cruel part is that none of it feels small from the inside. Parkinson’s also alters the calibration between how big a movement feels and how big it actually is, so a normal sized step feels exaggerated and a shuffle feels perfectly normal. That is the exact problem LSVT BIG was built to solve. It is an intensive, evidence based protocol designed specifically for people with Parkinson’s disease, and it works by having you practise deliberately large, high effort, whole body movements over and over with constant coaching on amplitude. Your brain recalibrates. Movement that felt like too much starts to feel normal, and the size of your everyday motion goes back up without you having to think about it every second.
LSVT BIG is not general exercise for Parkinson’s and it is not a set of stretches. It is a standardised course delivered one on one by a certified clinician, with a fixed structure, daily homework, and carryover tasks pulled from what you personally need to do at home. Dr. Adam Burns and Karley Loewen are both LSVT BIG certified here. The protocol asks a lot of you, and it is high effort by design, because effort is the ingredient that drives the recalibration. In exchange it is one of the few things in Parkinson’s care with real evidence behind it for the size and speed of everyday movement, and it is far better started sooner than later.
Who it's for.
LSVT BIG is for people with Parkinson’s disease, and it is most useful before the changes get severe. If you have noticed your walking, your handwriting or your turning getting smaller, this is the moment.
Steps, turning and freezing
Short shuffling steps, a slow turn broken into small pieces, or feet that stick to the floor in a doorway. Training amplitude goes straight at step size and turning, and it gives you a strategy to use when your feet lock up rather than leaving you stranded in the middle of a room.
Standing, reaching, everyday tasks
Getting out of a chair, in and out of the car, reaching a top shelf, buttoning a shirt, writing a note someone else can read. The protocol builds these in as carryover tasks, chosen from your life rather than off a list, so the gains show up where you actually need them.
Newly diagnosed and ready to act
A diagnosis is a reason to move more, not less. Starting while your movement is still close to normal gives the recalibration the most to work with, and it hands you a set of tools you keep using long after the course itself is finished.
What to expect in a session.
LSVT BIG runs as a course, not a drop in visit. You are one on one with a certified therapist every session, and you have homework on the days in between.
Assessment and baseline
Your certified therapist measures your walking speed and step length, your turning, your reach, how you rise from a chair, and the standard balance and function tests used with Parkinson’s. Those baseline numbers get repeated at the end, so what changed is measured rather than remembered. We also pick the everyday tasks you most want back.
The daily maximal moves
Every session runs the same core of large, whole body, maximum effort movements, repeated while your therapist coaches amplitude the entire time. It is physical and you will work hard. The repetition and the effort are not filler, they are the mechanism, which is why the protocol never waters either of them down.
Carryover and keeping it
Alongside the core moves you rehearse your own chosen tasks at that same exaggerated size, plus a walking program. You practise every day, including the days you are not in the clinic. At the end we re-measure, and you leave with the daily routine that keeps the gains instead of letting them fade.
Come in clothes and shoes you can move hard in, because you will be moving hard. Bring the person who helps you at home if you have one, since the homework goes far better when someone else knows what it should look like. If Parkinson’s has affected your voice as well as your movement, ask us about it. And tell your therapist about any heart or joint condition that limits how much you can exert yourself.
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