KENMORE, N.Y. — In Dean Eoannou's gym, people with Parkinson's disease transform from patients to fighters.

Eoannou was inspired to open "Parkinson's Boxing" after watching a news story on "60 Minutes" explaining how boxing training could help Parkinson's patients. He thought the results were intriguing, but the actual training could have been more realistic.

"When I saw the program, I realized that they weren’t really experienced boxing people," he said, reflecting on his experience of training boxers for more than a decade. "I knew I could do it - just from looking at it, I was positive I could do it. We build networks on different parts of the brain. You have to do that with pieces that fit together cognitively through meaningful learning. It’s really elaborate."

Dean and his trainers keep data for all their fighters, about 300 people each week. That makes it easy to track progress for Parkinson’s patients.

"When I first came, I was very clumsy," said Roman Figler, a Parkinson's patient. "When I did some of the drills, I would fall into the ring ropes and I needed support. But when they videoed my first visit, and then they videoed me two months later and showed me the video, the changes were dramatic."

Eoannou remembers his first client, a man named Frank who suffered from Multiple System Atrophy (MSA).

"This guy shows up with a four-pronged cane, a quad cane with suction cups. We don’t know how to get him down the stairs," he said. "It took two of us to get him down here."

After a few months, Frank was no longer dragging his foot when he walked, and he was back to running after six months of training. A study at Northwestern found that Dean’s fighters reported 87% fewer self-reported falls per month.

"In the beginning, I was afraid to tell anybody ‘I’m positive we can help you.’ They come in now, and I say ‘no doubt I can help you,'" he said.

Eoannou still tweaks his program, and his patients notice a difference between boxing and other therapies.

"I cut my meds down to less than half of what I was doing before," said Michael Todd, another Parkinson's patient. "I took 40-some pills and I’m now in the 20-range."

Eonnou says boxing-style training can help people with all sorts of neurodegenerative conditions, including strokes. Nick Spiotta is a double-stroke survivor and says he's seen big improvements after two months.

"I cannot feel my right side, and that has come back since I’ve been here," he said. "There’s been some incremental improvement."

"I feel and I’m viewed more normally," said Figler. "People don’t recognize that I have Parkinson’s just because the tremors are minimized and the way I carry myself."

The first gym has been such a success, Dean has opened a second one in Myrtle Beach, SC. For more information, visit their website here.