Saturday at the Riverview Estate Villages, the city hosted its Parkinsons Superwalk.

People of all ages and pets competed in the walk which was a kilometre, or a half kilometre around the Riverview Estate Villages.

The Parkinson Superwalk is Parkinson's Canada's largest fundraising event. In 2016 the walk raised $2.15-million and the goal for this year is to raise $2-million.

In the 26 year history of the event, it has raised more than $35 million for research, support services, advocacy, and education about and Parkinson's.

The Superwalk started in 1990 when a group of 7 members of the Toronto Chapter held it.

The Superwalk in Swift Current is the first walk of nearly 100 going on around the country.

Todd MacPherson, Managing Director of Parkinson's Canada in Saskatchewan, talked about how the event went.

"Phenomenal, this event has happened that last two years in Herbert and this is our first year moving it to Swift Current, obviously a bigger community, we have never seen this type of number of people before, I believe we are 150 to 160 easy, and the event broke a record for this event," MacPherson said. "We were hoping to raise $8,500 in online and cash donations today, but we’ve hit $14,000, raised through this walk alone, so it's very exciting for us and really encouraging for those living with Parkinson’s."

The money they raised will go into research for a cure, to better understand the disease also to find ways to help improve the lives of people living with Parkinson's.

The research will be focused on finding a cure, or trying to find something that will slow down the progression of Parkinson's, as currently there is nothing that does that. There is a medication called Carbidopa-Levodopa has been around for over 50 years and remains the gold standard in treating Parkinson's. What the medication does is encourages the brain to produce the dopamine needed for proper movement and the regulation of movement. Unfortunately, as the disease progresses the medication becomes less and less effective.

The research also will focus on testing for Parkinson's. Once a doctor thinks that you may have Parkinson's or some other neurological disorder he will recommend you to a neurologist. The test is a neurologist asking a series of questions and watching the people move as he has them do a bunch of gestures and diagnoses on that basis. The only test that can be done physically to confirm is an autopsy on the brain after death.

Parkinson's disease was first described by Dr. James Parkinson in 1817. Parkinson's is a progressive, degenerative brain disorder. Movement is normally controlled by dopamine, a chemical that carries signals between the nerves in the brain. When cells that normally produce dopamine die, the symptoms of Parkinson's appear. Parkinson's disease is not just a movement disorder. It is also characterized by a number of non-motor symptoms including depression and anxiety.

The major symptoms of Parkinson's are tremors, slowness, and stiffness, impaired balance, rigidity of the muscles.

Every day in Canada 25 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and according to MacPherson, that number is going to double by 2031.

"It is a huge problem and is a rapidly growing problem in Canada, in part because of the ageing population. Parkinson's is commonly thought of as a seniors disease, but there have been people that have been diagnosed at 35 with Parkinson's, but most of the people living with Parkinson's are living in their senior years, so that's part of what's driving it, we are not sure what other things are driving, so we are trying to do the research to figure out why."

There could be good news on the horizon as Parkinsons Canada has heard a lot of hope from researchers that Parkinson's will have a good chance of being one the first neurological disease where they will be some really big breakthroughs.

MacPherson added that we wanted to thank the Swift Current team that put the event on and to all of the family members, friends, community members for donating to our sponsors that make it possible and just to everybody that helped us raise awareness and raise dollars.

If you would like more information about the Parkinson's Superwalk visit http://donate.parkinson.ca/site/PageNavigator/SuperWalk/Home?s_locale=en_CA.