Parkinson's pioneer

George Turnbull. (Danny Abriel Photo)

When Dr. George Turnbull was a young man he followed a girl to Africa. At that time he was a physiotherapy student from the Royal Infirmary in Glasgow, Scotland.

He worked clinically for a while in what was then Rhodesia. The land was gorgeous. He enjoyed it there, but his education needed completing. So he moved on to the University of Manitoba.

From there, he continued on to Dalhousie for his master’s degree, and then returned to Africa for his PhD from Rhodes University in South Africa. Now he’s back at Dalhousie, where he's been for the past 30 years, as the Associate Dean in the Faculty of Health Professions.

Dr. Turnbull believes in serendipity.

When he first began his physiotherapy research, it was centred on rehabilitating stroke victims. But one day, a Parkinson’s group asked him to bring some of his Dalhousie students out to provide physiotherapy. “So I did that,” says Dr. Turnbull. “And before long it was becoming a regular occurrence and I thought, Parkinson’s…’.”

Parkinson’s is a progressive neurological disease affecting an estimated 8,400 people in the Maritimes. Dr. Turnbull describes this as a disease characterized by stiffness of muscle, slowness of movement, loss of balance and various other symptoms. “I started to think about (Parkinson’s) and how you might deal with a group of people who were actually going to deteriorate over time,” says Dr. Turnbull. “One of the things that I came up with is that if we could see people with Parkinson’s early, shortly after the diagnosis, we could get them exercising.”

Dr. Turnbull believes in building up a patient’s endurance and strength so that when they start to lose to the condition, they have more to draw upon. Medication, Dr. Turnbull believes, is not the only way to combat Parkinson’s.

This is an approach he calls “health promotion” and he educates Parkinson’s patients about it at his free Maritime Parkinson’s Clinic.

Carole A. Hartzman has been one of Dr. Turnbull’s patients at the clinic for the past seven years. “He operates outside of the box,” explains Ms. Hartzman. “He thinks creatively.” Exercise is the most important factor at the Maritime Parkinson’s Clinic, but fun is a very close second.

Sometimes he surprises patients by advising dance lessons to help with balance, or voice lessons to maintain vocal chords.

In a sense, this sort of customization is also the way Dr. Turnbull approaches things in the kitchen; cooking is another one of his passions. He starts his culinary creations from scratch, regarding recipes as a broad guideline. “I’m not talking curry powder here,” Dr. Turnbull begins. “I’m talking ground cumin, ground coriander, garam masala, ground-up turmeric. The whole thing’s from scratch, that’s the fun part.” If you haven’t yet guessed, he really likes cooking Indian and Middle Eastern dishes.

He learned to cook when he couldn’t find the kind of restaurants he liked. Now he spends the better part of his weekends at home hovering over the stove with his family close by.

Speaking of family, Dr. Turnbull is about to become a grandfather.

But in terms of his Parkinson’s research, the topic of passing on the torch to the next generation is not quite so pleasant. “The difficult part is it’s not very sexy for the new people coming along,” says Dr. Turnbull. “Bringing up the next generation in terms of succession planning has not been easy.”

This places even more importance on fundraising efforts such as the Parkinson Society Maritime Region’s annual fundraising gala. The gala, which took place last night (Thursday, May 20), paid tribute to Dr. Turnbull as a Parkinson’s pioneer.

Yes, Dr. Turnbull has an intimate understanding of Parkinson’s and its effects on the body. But his response to the fright of Parkinson’s may surprise some. “It’s not as terrible as you might think,” he says. “I say to (the patient), ‘you know, of all the neurological diseases, this is the one to have because at least it’s manageable’.”

To learn more about Parkinson’s disease and the Parkinson Society Maritime Region, please visit www.parkinsonmaritimes.ca.