GOLDEN, Colo. — On most Tuesdays, Doug Redosh can be found at Movement climbing gym in Golden. At 69, the retired neurologist has been climbing for 50 years and still feels a rush.
He's conquered cliffs for decades, but they are no match for his current climb: a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. “Parkinson's is, as we say, neurodegenerative disorder. Usually, we say people have nonmotor symptoms early on and later they develop motor symptoms -- stiffness, rigidity, slowness in movements and tremor,” he said.
“I was formally diagnosed in 2019, but my father had Parkinson's, so I knew I was at high risk.” Redosh always knew in the back of his head that a diagnosis was a possibility, but that didn’t mean hearing it for the first time didn’t hurt. “It wasn't a shock.
I knew it was coming, but it was confirmatory of what I knew was coming,” he said. “I was bummed, sure. I was bummed.
” After the diagnosis, Redosh kept climbing, figurately and physically, by creating a local chapter of a program called Up Ending Parkinson’s. Credit: Michael Grady Doug Redosh climbs at Movement gym in Golden. Redosh created a chapter of Up Ending Parkinson's in Colorado.
“This was founded in Virginia by a gym manager who is a physical therapist,” Redosh said about the program. “And she noticed climbing patients were doing better with their Parkinson’s.” A recent study solidified the theory.
The study included two exercise groups, a standard exercise group and a climb.