Coloradans with neurodegenerative diseases use pingpong for rehabilitation

Mark Lauterbach was leaving a brewery in Fort Collins earlier this year when he found himself being pelted by hail. Instinctively, he took off running toward his car.

When he made it, he burst into tears.

“I felt like Forrest Gump,” Lauterbach said. “I ran, and I just cried. It’s been incredible.”

The 58-year-old, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis eight years ago, thought his running days were long over. But playing pingpong, he said, had brought back the gift of running.

Lauterbach credits table tennis for a vast improvement in his overall mobility. The Colorado-based NeuroPong program he participates in is now being researched by scientists investigating the link between neurodegenerative conditions and the game often associated with parents’ basements.

After his diagnosis, Lauterbach dealt with neuropathy along the right side of his body that rendered the movement of his arm, hand, leg and foot difficult. He developed balance problems and could no longer run or ride his bike around Fort Collins.

But about a year ago, Lauterbach received an email from the Multiple Sclerosis Society about a pingpong group established to help people with neurodegenerative diseases like MS, Parkinson’s and dementia.

The NeuroPong program, led by founder and CEO Antonio Barbera, marries medicine with the love of the game. Barbera brings his 31 years as a physician — interrupted by an MS diagnosis in 2017 — while 27-year-old Peruvian table tennis champion Francesca Vargas provides the pingpong expertise as head coach and fellow MS patient.

After about three months of sessions inside a Fort Collins church gymnasium under the tutelage of Barbera and Vargas, Lauterbach began regaining his balance and learning actual pingpong technique.

Researchers at the Movement Disorders Center on the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus were so intrigued by the anecdotal success stories they heard that they began studying the NeuroPong players’ symptoms and tracking their improvements for their research.

“Table tennis is not a miracle,” Barbera said. “The paddle is not a miracle. What is magic is your brain.”

Bridging physical, mental and social health

Barbera, a gynecologist for more than 30 years, lost his ability to work after his MS hindered control of his right arm and leg. He also experienced chest tightness, an uncomfortable feeling Barbera likened to an elephant sitting on his torso.

In 2019, Barbera was playing pingpong in his garage with his son when he noticed something.

“It was like the elephant was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room, leaving me alone,” he said.

Barbera felt better when he played the tabletop game, but the former physician wanted the backing of science to better understand why. He consulted neurologists, physical therapists and scientists to learn more about how exercise and socialization can improve cognitive function and whether pingpong might be an ideal form of rehabilitation for people with neurodegenerative diseases.

The motor function, quick decision-making, hand-eye coordination and side-to-side movement involved in table tennis could be a perfect storm for boosting cognitive function, he thought.

Barbera founded NeuroPong in 2021.

Now, he oversees the program with about 60 players between Boulder and Fort Collins sessions. Players come in various skill levels. Some have trouble walking and standing. Some use a wheelchair. Others have tremors or little control over their limbs, Barbera said. Many have never before picked up a paddle.

Players range in age from young folks to those in their 90s and have different neurodegenerative conditions that impact their nervous systems.

When a new player joins the crew, Barbera assesses them to see where they should begin. Some players hang onto the pingpong table and practice walking back and forth along it or tossing the ball into the air and catching it. Barbera and Vargas hover close by, keeping an eye on players’ balance and movement control.

Vargas teaches basic table tennis techniques, including how to serve and hit. She practices with the players, lobbing the ball in such a way as to set them up for success.

A successful volley is not the ultimate goal, though.

“What I care about most is the entire person,” Barbera said.

Patients’ mental health is considered, too, as Barbera and researchers inquire how players are feeling emotionally and socially.

For Lauterbach, the group has provided a community of people who understand what he’s going through — friends who can grab a coffee together after sessions.

Earlier this month, Lauterbach beamed in the Fort Collins church gymnasium while demonstrating his ableness to balance on one leg — something he once couldn’t do — while surrounded by his newfound friends.

“There is fellowship, and that helps, too,” Lauterbach said. “I work my whole schedule around pingpong because I hate missing it.”

Research is promising

Vargas also goes to great lengths to attend NeuroPong.

To get to her head coaching job, the 27-year-old bikes to a bus stop in her Highlands Ranch neighborhood, rides the bus to Fort Collins and then bikes to the church the group uses as home base before doing it all again to head home.

When the Peruvian professional pingpong player was diagnosed with MS two years ago, she thought her days of table tennis were over. Dizziness, balance and vision problems plagued her, but the athletic young woman felt she couldn’t let the diagnosis define her.

Instead, Vargas got back in the saddle with her pingpong paddle and competed in another Peruvian table tennis championship six months after her diagnosis — and won.

“Something inside me said I could do it,” Vargas said.

Vargas vacationed in Denver to visit friends soon after and ended up connecting with Barbera.

The pingpong champion had been private about her diagnosis, only telling close friends and family, because the medical condition put her in a dark place, she said.

Barbera offered her a job and a chance to be open about her journey, which Vargas couldn’t resist.

“Maybe this is my destiny, to help people that are doing the same as me and going through the same as me,” she said.

Throughout a recent NeuroPong practice, Vargas was met with smiling hugs from her trainees, who gushed over her friendliness and dedication. Vargas volleyed the ball back and forth, coaching with kindness and encouragement while Barbera came around correcting posture, recommending stretches and assessing how everyone was faring.

“I can see that this program is improving people’s symptoms,” Vargas said. “People are getting stronger. People who could not stand on their own at first are now doing so. People are having better control of their movements. They tell me they can open jars when they couldn’t before. It’s really improving quality of life.”

So far, the science agrees.

Matthew Woodward, a fellow at CU Anschutz’s Movement Disorders Center, said the results of their studies to date — looking at outcomes like balance improvement, movement and mood — show no negative results. The results need to be tested on a larger population to be statistically significant, Woodward said, but the research — this first study focuses solely on Parkinson’s disease — looks promising.

Additional research is on the way, Barbera said.