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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores a group of Californians with Parkinson’s who fight to reassert a sense of self amid neurological changes and threats to personhood. By training as boxers, older adults have established new forms of healthy aging that promote adaptation and self-esteem over loss and decline.

Paper long abstract:

The neurological malady Parkinson’s Disease typically occurs in the second half of a person’s life supporting its clinical classification as a neurodegenerative disorder. While it is true that previously typical motor and cognitive functions, as well as dopaminergic production, become impaired by the disease, some people with Parkinson’s take exception to the clinical account of progressive degeneration believing this framing to be harmful to the human capacity for adaptation and coping. Practices like boxing and forced-rate exercise have allowed people to disrupt the narrative of consistent decline by literally fighting back and asserting control over their minds and bodies. This paper follows a group of exceptional Parkinson’s Fighters training as boxers in Southern California through the journey of diagnosis to reluctant acceptance to flourishing. I propose a dynamic model of healthy aging despite neurological disorders that enables individuals to reassert their personhood in the face of popular discourse that attempts to reduce long-lived identities to a diseased self. Refuting the notion that human development reaches a peak before turning to continuous decline, I illustrate a case study of novel skill acquisition and social engagement that affords opportunities for growth and personality development in later life.