4 Hours of Weekly Moderate Exercise Slows Parkinson Disease Progression

In a study published in Neurology, 4 hours/week of regular moderate exercise slowed decline in clinical symptoms, such as balancing, walking, and doing daily activities. People with early Parkinson disease (PD) who got moderate exercise, such as walking or gardening, for at least 4 hours/ week had slower disease progression compared with those who got less than 4 hours/week. Maintaining physical activity over time associated with slower progression more strongly than with activity at baseline.

Participants’ (n=237, mean age 63) activity level was measured at baseline and over 6 years of follow up. At the beginning of the study, ranked symptom severity was 1.4. People who continued to exercise at least 4 hours/week ended the study with symptom severity 3.0 compared with those with less exercise who had symptom severity of 3.7. 

On cognitive testing, people who performed less than 15.5 hours of work per week had a score decrease from 44 to 40 on the test 6 years later. For participants who did more than 15.5 hours of work over the same period had an average score decrease from 44 to 43. 

“Our results are exciting, because they suggest it may never be too late for someone with PD to start an exercise program to improve the course of their disease,” said study author Kazuto Tsukita, MD, of Kyoto University in Japan and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “That’s because we found that to slow progression of the disease, it was more important for people with PD to maintain an exercise program than it was to be active at the beginning of the disease.”
 
“Although medications can provide people with PD some symptom relief, they haven’t been shown to slow the progression of the disease,” Tsukita said. “We found that regular physical activity, including household tasks and moderate exercise, may actually improve the course of the disease over the long run. Best of all, exercise is low cost and has few side effects.”