A nationwide pickleball tournament with Philly roots is raising awareness for Parkinson's disease treatment
A new pickleball tournament will launch in Philadelphia this weekend aimed at helping people with Parkinson's disease. It's called Triumph Over Tremors.
It was started by a Philadelphia patient who no longer has Parkinson's tremors. He wants others to have access to the treatment that helped him, and he's getting the message out with pickleball.
Bobby Krause, playing pickleball, is back to enjoying activities that he wasn't able to do after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
"Everything from shaving, buttoning a shirt," Krause said. "Those were things at the age of 42, when I was first diagnosed, that I couldn't do on my own."
Krause said tremors caused by the incurable neurological disorder interfered with just about everything.
"It was a shock to the family, a shock to myself," Krause said.
When medications didn't work, Krause turned to focused ultrasound treatments at Penn Medicine.
"You're in the tube and you're shaking," Krause said, "and then all of a sudden, you become completely still as you feel your head slightly warming up from focused ultrasound waves."
After treatment, the tremor was gone.
"I just sobbed uncontrollably," Krause said. "I went from no hope at all to being able to understand that I have a restored quality of life."
For that, he thanks Penn neurosurgeon Dr. Casey Halpern.
"Focused ultrasound is a non-invasive ablative treatment," Halpern said. "There's no incision. It's an outpatient procedure."
Halpern said the FDA-approved treatment works by targeting sound waves to parts of the brain that cause the tremors.
"There are so many people with Parkinson's that either don't know about it, so they don't get access to it," Halpern said, "or they can't afford to pay for it."
To fix that, Krause started the Be Still Foundation to raise awareness and money to cover costs for patients with tremors to get focused ultrasound, because it's not covered by insurance.
"So that I can help others in my same position," Krause said.
The foundation is hosting the Triumph Over Tremors Pickleball Tournament, a nationwide series kicking off in April during National Parkinson's Awareness Month. Two hundred people have signed up.