Physical activity can improve both the quality of life and the intensity of movement-related symptoms in Parkinson’s patients. According to the first Cochrane review of available research, any form of organized exercise is not preferable to any. The review examined 156 randomized controlled trials that compared physical activity with no physical activity, different types of physical activity, and no physical activity at all. It included 7,939 participants from around the world, making it the largest and most thorough systematic review examining the effects of physical activity on patients with Parkinson’s disease.
The Cochrane review, a collaboration of independent international experts, was conducted by Dr. Elke Kalbe, Professor of Medical Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany. It found that physical exercise ranging from dance, water-based exercise, strength and resistance exercise, and endurance exercise to tai chi, yoga, and physical therapy produced mild to large improvements in the severity of movement-related (“motor”) symptoms and quality of life.
“Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disease of the nervous system that primarily affects people over 60,” said Professor Kalbe. “Symptoms begin gradually and include movement problems such as tremors, stiffness, slowing of movement and balance, and lack of coordination. People can also have emotional and mood problems, fatigue, sleep problems, and cognitive difficulties. However, Parkinson’s disease cannot be cured, the symptoms can be alleviated, and physiotherapy or other forms of exercise can also help. It was previously unclear whether some types of exercise work better than others. We wanted to find out which exercise works best to improve exercise and quality of life improve. ”
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The mean age of participants in the studies included in the review ranged from 60 to 74 years. Most had mild to moderate illness and no major impairment in their thought processes. The review found that most types of exercise worked well for the participants, compared to no physical exercise.
The review’s first author, Moritz Ernst, is a member of Cochrane Hematology and co-chair of the Evidence-Based Medicine working group led by study co-author Professor Nicole Skoetz at the University Hospital of Cologne.
He said: “We observed clinically meaningful improvements in motor symptom severity with most types of exercise. These included dancing, training to improve gait, balance and movement, multi-exercise training and mind-body training. We saw similar benefits in motor symptom severity for water-based training, strength and resistance training, and endurance training, but estimates of improvement were fairly imprecise, meaning we’re not confident enough to say these improvements are clinically meaningful.
In terms of quality of life effects, we observed clinically meaningful beneficial effects for water-based exercise and effects likely to be clinically meaningful for multiple types of exercise, such as: B. Endurance training, mind-body training, training to improve gait, balance and movement, and multi-exercise training. These estimates were also rather imprecise.
“Confidence in estimates for the effect on symptoms of different forms of exercise varied because some studies were very small and did not provide complete information on motor symptom severity and quality of life for all participants. The authors say that, however, their review highlights that most types of exercise resulted in significant improvements, and they found little evidence of large differences between different exercises.
Prof Kalbe said: “We consider our results to be good news as they suggest that people with Parkinson’s disease may benefit from various structured exercise programs to improve the severity of motor symptoms and quality of life in general, while the precise type of exercise.” can be secondary. Therefore, personal preferences of people with Parkinson’s disease should be given special consideration to motivate them to stick to an exercise program. Every exercise counts!” It’s important to note that our conclusions do not preclude that certain motor symptoms may be most effectively managed through programs such as physical therapy that are specifically designed for people with Parkinson’s disease.”
Ernst concluded: “Although our results for people with Parkinson’s disease are quite promising, the certainty of the evidence on the effectiveness of different types of exercise and potential differences between them has usually been limited. This was also because most of the studies had a very small sample size.
Therefore, although much research is already being done in this area, we would encourage researchers to conduct larger studies with well-defined samples, as this would help to conclude with more confidence.
Additionally, it would be admirable to see studies that focus on people with more advanced medical conditions and thinking disorders so that we could find out if physical exercise could be beneficial for these people as well.”
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