Parkinson’s Disease and Exercise

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that is mostly seen among the elderly. The symptoms of PD include tremors, freezing gait, slow movements, unstable gait, and motor coordination deficits. The intensity of the symptoms varies from person to person and unfortunately, there is currently no cure for the disease.

However, exercise is seen to be very beneficial to help improve the overall quality of life.

These benefits of exercise include:

- Slows the progression of the disease.

- Decrease pain experienced.

- Prolongs independent mobility (gait, balance, strength…)

- Improves sleep, mood, and memory.

Physical activity is the best medicine for PD. Exercise in the form of aerobic exercise (especially dancing) and resistance training is seen to be the most effective. Research has also shown dancing to be beneficial form of aerobic exercise and balance training for neurological diseases.

A Biokineticist would use exercise which focuses on improving muscular strength, gait training, and neuromuscular/proprioception. The primary goal would be to improve the quality of life of patients. So, by increasing muscular strength, it helps improve gait however, neuromuscular training is especially important in fall prevention.

Examples of our goals and exercises include:

- Muscular strength: lower body (e.g., sit to stand), upper body (e.g., wall push-up), and core (e.g., bridges)

- Gait training: Walking through a ladder, stepping over objects on the floor, holding a water bottle while walking.

- Neuromuscular training: playing finger soccer, single leg balance, dynamic balance training (dancing)

Exercises will depend on the patient and the stage of progression of the disease. However, it is important to have clear goals that you want to achieve. Parkinson’s disease symptoms and severity varies from person to person, so it is important to make sessions fun and individual specific to achieve your goals.

Fayyaz, M., Jaffery, S. S., Anwer, F., Zil-E-Ali, A., & Anjum, I. 2018. The Effect of Physical Activity in Parkinson's Disease: A Mini-Review. Cureus, 10(7): e2995.

Bhalsing, K. S., Abbas, M. M., & Tan, L. C. S. 2018. Role of Physical Activity in Parkinson's Disease. Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology, 21(4):242–249.

Tsukita, K., Sakamaki-Tsukita, H. & Takahashi, R. 2022. Long-term effect of regular physical activity and exercise habits in patients with early parkinson disease. Neurology, 98 (8) e859-e871.