When Kristen Schillaci happened to see a Sunday special on TV, she had no idea how much it would change her life – or the lives of others.
The television special focused on a specific and unusual treatment combining boxing and Parkinson’s patients, which, according to the interviewees, was life changing. As a practicing therapist, Schillaci was hooked immediately.
Now, she is set to operate her own arm of the program, called Rock Steady Boxing, which will bring boxing to those with Parkinson’s at the North River YMCA with the help of fellow instructor Nicole Berger.
But Schillaci’s calling to work with medical patients began even before seeing that TV special.
“While I was finishing my master’s thesis and I was visiting a nursing home, there was specifically one lady that had Parkinson’s disease,” she said. “That experience in that nursing home, watching her go through pretty much the end stages of her life, got me in to working with seniors. From that point, I finished my master’s thesis and went straight in to working in health care.”