Thorsten Boomhuis is a founding member and board member of PingPongParkinson eV, the German section of the now global PingPongParkinson movement. The world champion in doubles from 2021 returned from this year's PingPongParkinson World Championship in Pula/Croatia at the beginning of the week and posted the following appeal on Facebook this morning, which I would like to pass on without comment.

What is really important!

You all know that I am also a very ambitious person at the table tennis table. So if I'm going to a world championship, I'll hopefully have a hard time leaving the field to my fellow competitors for a long time to come. That's why my previous posts focused on the sporting competition.

But I always emphasize one thing: the tournaments, including the World Championships, are a means of public relations for PingPongParkinson! It's about becoming better known to those affected by reporting, in order to get even more of them to the table tennis tables.

Immediately after my return from Pula, I had my regular Parkinson's check-up with Professor Warnecke at the Osnabrück Clinic yesterday.

I was a bit surprised why the professor kept looking at me so closely during the standardized part of the examination and didn't want to stop examining the rigor in my right arm... He could hardly tell!

Result of the investigation: Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale <10!

This means that at the end of a very busy week of table tennis, 10 years after my Parkinson's diagnosis, I have the impairment value of a newly diagnosed patient!

There is only one explanation for this, the professor and patient agree:

Table tennis slows down the progression of Parkinson's syndromes!

Please, please, please: spread the word!