Sport
19 April, 2025
How ping pong is helping Parkinson’s disease patients
IT’S game on for the ‘Parky pong’ club, a group of locals living with Parkinson’s disease who have turned their weekly table tennis matches into a safe space for sport and community.
Now boasting 19 members, ‘parky pong’ has become a staple feature at the Cairns Table Tennis stadium on Sheridan St, where they gather every Tuesday from 9.30am to 11.30am for some friendly matches and a chat.
Co-founders Colin and Susan Brown decided to start the club when they were looking for a suitable sport for Mr Brown who was diagnosed 10 years ago.
Through Ramsay Health Care, PD Warriors and the neurological department at Cairns Hospital, the pair reached out to other patients and officially started playing on November 19, 2024.
“It was something that we came up with because Colin has Parkinson’s and we’re doing some research for different types of exercise to help with balance and coordination and ping pong was something Colin played as a kid,” Mrs Brown said.
“And from that, we sent out a couple of newsletters and emails to various departments and people and started looking for a venue, then the Cairns Table Tennis backed us up.
“People come and stay for 45 minutes or an hour depending on how tired they get, and that’s the thing about it, it’s not serious competition, it’s purely recreational and a social outing.”
Mr Brown said that he believed these table tennis sessions were highly beneficial for them.
“It’s hard to say because we’re not running a clinical trial here, but people keep coming back,” he said.
“There’s a lady called Kathy Covell, she comes every Tuesday, she could hardly move when she first started, couldn’t hit a ball and within a couple of weeks she was back at it.”
The Parky pong club plays every Tuesday at the Cairns Table Tennis stadium and walk-ins are encouraged. It costs pay $5 to play.
