TAMPA, Fla. — Hundreds of people came together at the Jewish Community Center on Howard Avenue in Tampa on Sunday with one shared mission: fighting Parkinson's disease.
Among them was Judy Flasterstein, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in February of 2025. Nearly a year later, she's managing her symptoms but leaning more on her support network.
"It hasn't started being too bad yet. My right side is the one that's affected, mainly my right arm, so it shakes a lot," Flasterstein said.
She first noticed something was wrong when her right arm stopped swinging naturally while walking.
The event, organized by the Jewish Community Center and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, has become an annual gathering designed to show people like Flasterstein that they don't have to face this battle alone.
"There's a principle of improving the quality of life, and what better way to do it and to have really clear results," said Pnina Levermore, director of Tampa JCC and Federation's Parkinson's program.
The Symposium makes information and resources easily accessible to those affected by the disease and their families.
Dr. Robert Hauser, director of the Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorder Center at USF, emphasized the importance of community support and continued research.
"This is very important. Our medications do a pretty good job early on, but over the long term, people run into a lot of difficulty. So it's one of our research missions to figure out how do we slow the disease and make it better over the long term," Hauser said.
Hauser is leading research efforts locally at the University of South Florida, collaborating with experts like Dr. Ray Dorsey from the Center for the Brain and Environment at Atria Health and Research Institute.
Dorsey shared an optimistic message about prevention and the future of Parkinson's treatment.
"As Americans age, more and more of them are developing Parkinson's disease, but Parkinson's is not a natural consequence of aging. It's an unnatural consequence of aging. So we're here today to communicate to people that Parkinson's disease is preventable," Dorsey said.
Both doctors believe Parkinson's disease can be beaten through collaboration and continued research efforts.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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