ABOUT

WHAT

WHEN

LENGTH?

WHO?

HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM

ABOUT

A LEGACY PROGRAM

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that impacts up to 11.8 million people worldwide ⁽¹⁾. Many people with PD live for decades with the disease and over time, as the disease progresses and cause more symptoms, the person with PD may experience  more stigma around the disease. They and their family members may also experience more challenges that keep them from living easily and freely particularly around travel.

One of the biggest challenges for people with PD is travelling comfortably and safely. Traveling through airports, on city transportation, and to new hotels can present a myriad of problems around accessibility and lack of awareness by local staff. If traveling through time zones, Parkinson's symptoms may be exacerbated by the time change and how that impacts timing of  medications. Dehydration and anxiety can increase symptoms and sheer fatigue can lead to problems navigating big airports and waiting long lines.

While the WPC cannot fix infrastructure issues making accessibility better, for travelers, the WPC can address the lack of knowledge about PD and how to support a guest or visitor with PD.

The World Parkinson Coalition designed the “Parkinson Ready” program to address these challenges for people with Parkinson's. While this program was initially offered only to cities that are selected to host our triennial World Parkinson Congresses, it is now being piloted in Vancouver, Canada and  Philadelphia, PA, USA to see how the training can be utilized by any city interested in driving up awareness and building up a more inclusive and accessible city work force to support local residents and tourists to the city.

The goals of the programs are to:
     (1)  help the city better understand how to support local residents living with PD and to ensure tourists and guests with PD have a welcoming and safe experience while in the city;
     (2)  prepare key leaders in the safety, transportation, hospitality and other service industries to better understand Parkinson’s disease and be prepared to support those who they interact with in their work day;
     (3)  to ensure the city work force that is on the front lines is ready to support the local PD community with more confidence and understanding about PD;
     (4)  to help build new alliances between the local advocates and the service industry so they can continue the relationship well beyond the week of the Congress.

WHAT

This Parkinson Ready program helps the host city welcome delegates and is a great way to showcase the friendliness and hospitality of the city – for ALL travelers, those with movement disabilities and others. When the program concludes this knowledge remains with all those who were trained and they can then use this new information with future guests to their hotels, meeting centers, on their trains, in their taxis and beyond.

PD is a complicated and often misunderstood disease so this is a gift of knowledge the WPC leaves behind after the Congress and is now working to offer cities regardless of whether or not they are hosting the World Parkinson Congress.

WHEN

The Parkinson program is now offered to cities that are interested in bringing it to their city.  

Trainings are offered in simple, friendly manner for people who know little to nothing about Parkinson’s but who want to understand how to better serve this community.  Multiple trainings are offered at various times to maximize participation. We can bring the training to the team, or bring the team to a separate location for the training. 

We like to offer the training to specific groups so that can customize some of the messaging to each audience. For example, what we highlight for taxi drivers differs from the key messaging to the police officers, which different from the key messaging to the hotel staff. 

LENGTH?

The training is approximately 75 minutes which includes lecture, demonstration, and Q&A.

WHO?

For maximum success in the program, the WPC teams up with a local partner, whether it's the local Parkinson's group, health association, hospital, Visitors Bureau or another partner, we are eager to work with a local partner to ensure the training is culturally appropriate for your city and community.

It’s important to the WPC that the local community builds relationships with those they train so they can continue to work together in the future

Trainees include, but are not limited to:

    -   Hotel front of house staff
    -   Convention center staff
    -   Transportation workers (Train, Bus, Subway, Taxis, etc.)
    -   Airport staff (particularly customs officials at nearest airport)
    -   Police officers
    -   Fire Fighters
    -   Onsite staff who are hired to run events

We look forward to ensuring community members and tourists will experience the beauty of the city and he outstanding hospitality and workers who are knowledgeable about PD. We also look forward to being able to “leave behind” this new knowledge so the local staff can continue to use this new knowledge to better serve future guests to their city, airport, hotels etc.

HISTORY OF THE PROGRAM

The Parkinson Ready program has been offered in the following cities:
Glasgow, Scotland, UK in 2010
Montreal, Canada in 2013
Portland, OR, USA in 2016
Kyoto, Japan in 2019
Barcelona, Spain in 2023 (LEARN MORE about the program)

Ongoing PILOT trainings taking place in 2024 in:
Vancouver, Canada (LEARN MORE and Participate!)
Philadelphia, PA, USA (LEARN MORE and Participate!)