Parkinson’s Exercise Program for Trunk Rigidity Seen to Help With…

A four-week task-specific exercise program done at home can improve turning ability and balance, and ease the severity of the disease for people with early to mid-stage disease. Parkinson’ssuggested a small study.

This Parkinson’s exercise program explicitly focuses on rotating the body parts most involved in turning. It may be a promising alternative rehabilitation program for patients with trunk stiffness that makes it difficult to turn and is at risk of falling, the researchers said.

The study, “Benefits of task-specific movement program over block turning in Parkinson’s disease: a randomized controlled trial.”, was published in the magazine International Physiotherapy Research.

Trunk stiffness is common Parkinson’s symptom illness. Instead of turning the body in an up-and-down approach, with the head moving first, then the shoulders and hips, patients tend to move all of these body parts together or “en bloc.”

Such stiffness in movement can affect turning and balance to increase the risk of falls, the researchers noted. While treatments for Parkinson’s such as levodopa therapy Y deep brain stimulation aim to address such difficulties, they are better off doing so when combined with physical training, the team added.

However, it has not been reported how task-specific movement exercises might improve ‘block’ turning in Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers at Mahidol University in Thailand evaluated a month-long, task-specific movement exercise program on turning movement and clinical disease outcomes in a small group of patients.

They enrolled 22 patients with early to mid-stage Parkinson’s matched for age and disease severity. Half were randomized to an exercise group and the other half continued routine medication as a control group. Twisting movements and clinical outcomes, determined by measures including the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale, or UPDRS, were assessed before and after the exercise program.

Task-specific exercises were administered in three weekly sessions supervised by a physical therapist in a clinic for two weeks, then as two supervised and two home exercise sessions in the third week, followed by five home exercises in the fourth week. and last week. .

The main exercise program included 45 minutes of rotation, 10 times each, of different parts of the body (head, shoulders, hips, etc.) in positions such as sitting, standing, and lying down. Its objective is to increase the flexibility and mobility of each part of the body.

The patients then participated in a five-minute throwing task to improve balance, and 10 minutes of twisting in each direction while walking to increase their range of body rotation. Before and after the exercises, a 15-minute warm-up and cool-down period of deep breathing and stretching was performed.

To measure turning movements (kinematics) and stepping motion, special sensors were placed in the center of the head, the middle of the chest, and the feet. The participants performed a half-circle turn and the team recorded the delays, or latencies, in the movement of each body segment as they turned, and their speed and step movements.

According to the analysis, those who participated in the exercises had reduced latencies, or faster movements, in all parts of the body, including the head, chest, front foot and rear foot, compared to the control group. Overall, mean onset latency was significantly decreased, indicating faster movement onset, only in the exercise group.

When turning the semicircle, step size, total step, step duration, and turning speed were significantly improved in patients in the exercise group relative to the control group.

“This result could be explained by the fact that the repetition of the desired movement [180-degree turns] and task-specific training should improve motor learning by reducing the complexity of motor planning and decreasing reliance on sensory feedback,” the researchers wrote.

UPDRS scores showed that those in the exercise group had significantly lower (improved) total, motor, and stiffness UPDRS scores compared to their pre-program scores, indicating a decrease in Parkinson’s severity among these individuals.

The exercise program also significantly improved balance, as measured by the functional reach test, and alleviated fear of falls, as assessed by the Fall Efficacy Scale, a self-report questionnaire used to assess fear of falls in a population. old woman.

“The main finding of this study was that a [four]specific week-long home exercise program, which focused on TSM [task-specific movement]could improve block turning and clinical outcomes in people with early to mid stage [Parkinson’s disease]”, the researchers wrote.

One limitation of the study was that the control group did not receive the same amount of attention as the exercise group; therefore, “it cannot be ruled out as a contributing factor to group differences,” they said.