The Role of Exercise In Treating Parkinson Disease
A Cochrane systematic review and of 156 randomized controlled clinical trials and found that any type of physical exercise was beneficial for people with Parkinson disease (PD). Positive effects on motor function and quality of life were confirmed, although most studies were small and with high risk of bias, partly due to necessary self-reported outcome measures for quality of life.
Across different types of exercise, there was high confidence for moderate benefits on motor function with dance with lower confidence for benefits of aqua-based movement, gait-balance-functional exercise, and multi-domain trainings. Small benefits on motor function were seen with mind-body exercise and endurance training, and confidence for these effects was also lower. Large quality of life benefits were seen for aqua-based trainings with moderate confidence, moderate for endurance trainings with lower confidence, and small for gait-balance-functional, and multi-domain trainings, also with lower confidence.
Safety data was not available in 85 of the studies; however in 44 studies there were no adverse events and in 28 the adverse events were mild consisting mostly of falls and pain.
“The current systematic review provides much more positive news about the effects of exercise as a therapeutic strategy,” said Alice Nieuwboer, PhD, professor, department of rehabilitation sciences, KU Leuven, Belgium. “Effect sizes of exercise, which were deemed small in 2012 and only applied to motor function, show today that movement therapy generates at least moderate effect sizes on motor function and impacts quality of life. What is more, the risks of exercise were found to be low. Therefore, despite detecting considerable risk of bias in the included study material, this review brings the overall positive message that engaging in movement therapy is safe and worth the effort. The next challenge is to address how people with PD across the world can access and take up exercise in the most cost-effective way, particularly in underserved areas.”
These data were presented at the International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders in Madrid, Spain, where another 20 studies on various exercise programs and monitoring of physical activity were also reported. Physical exercise programs ranged from ballet to climbing, ping-pong, and more. Physical activity monitoring studies show potential benefits of using smartwatches and telerehabilitation.