2.5 hours of exercise every week may help with mobility in people with Parkinson’s

Patients with Parkinson’s disease may be benefited by 2.5 hours of exercise every week, according to a new study. The American study suggests that exercising for at least 2.5 hours weekly may help Parkinson’s patients maintain physical health and quality of life.

Parkinson’s is a progressive degenerative disease of the central nervous system that mainly affects movement. The condition causes tremors, stiffness of the trunk and limbs, lack of balance and coordination, and mobility deterioration.

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About one million Americans are thought to have Parkinson's, and about 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with the condition each year. Most patients are aged over 50 but younger people can be affected as well.



Past studies have suggested that exercise may benefit patients with Parkinson's. One study found that patients with early Parkinson's who exercised 40 to 60 minutes three times a week experienced improved mobility and balance over 6 months, resulting in a reduction in falls.

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For this study, lead researcher Miriam R. Rafferty, Ph.D., of the Center for Education in Health Sciences at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and colleagues sought to determine how regular exercise might help health-related quality of life (HRQL), and mobility for Parkinson’s patients over a 2-year period.

They analyzed more than 3,400 patients with Parkinson’s disease. The participants were a part of the National Parkinson Foundation Quality Improvement Initiative (NPF-QII), which gathers data on clinical care and outcomes for Parkinson's patients at 21 places in North America, the Netherlands, and Israel.



Over 2 years, the participants visited the clinic at least three times. During these visits, researchers collected data on the patients’ exercise duration each week, and their functional mobility and HRQL.

The team used Timed Up and Go (TUG) test to assess the participants’ mobility. During the test patients were required to stand up from a seated position, walk about 3 meters, turn around, and then sit back down. Patients self-reported HRQL through The Parkinson Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39).

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The researchers found that those who took part in a minimum of 2.5 hours of physical exercise a week experienced much slower declines in HRQL and mobility over 2 years, compared with patients who exercised less than 2.5 hours weekly.

"The most important part of the study is that it suggests that people who are not currently achieving recommended levels of exercise could start to exercise today to lessen the declines in quality of life and mobility that can occur with this progressive disease," says Rafferty.



The team also found that patients in the advanced stages of Parkinson's saw an improvement in both HRQL and mobility by increasing their physical activity by 30 minutes each week.

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The team says their findings have far-reaching implications for making Parkinson’s patients more physically active. They note that such patients may experience more severe impairments in their mobility, making participation in current exercise programs challenging.



The study was not intended to pinpoint what types of exercise are best for patients with Parkinson's, but the authors say that performing any type of physical activity is better than being sedentary.

"People with [Parkinson's disease] should feel empowered to find the type of exercise they enjoy, even those with more advanced symptoms," concludes Dr. Rafferty.

Findings of the study were published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease.

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Music may improve memory in dementia patients, study finds

Music is a powerful medium that moves us physically and mentally. It has the power to transport us back to an earlier time or give us a sense of dejavu. Music has always been known to enhance our mood, but a new study reports that music may help preserve and even enhance cognitive function in elderly patients with mild to moderate dementia.

The findings of the study, conducted by researchers from University of Helsinki, Finland, and published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, could lead to better dementia care for the elderly.

Lead author of the study Dr. Teppo Sarkamo, a specialist in cognitive brain research, behavioral science and music research said,

“Our findings suggest that musical leisure activities could be easily applied and widely used in dementia care and rehabilitation.”

For the study, the researchers looked at the effects of musical coachingto 89 patients with mild to moderate dementia when they joined the 10-week intervention along with their caregivers. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Factors such as, participants’ age, dementia severity, care situation, and previous musical experience were taken into account.

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The first group of pairs went through 10 weeks of singing, the second group of pairs focused only on listening to music and the third group acted as a control group, which involved standard care only.

Evaluations taken after 9 months into the trial showed that memory, executive function, orientation and mood already improved in the groups receiving musical coaching compared with the control group. Executive function helps us focus attention, plan, remember and manage several tasks at the same time.

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The researchers also discovered that patients with mild dementia and below 80 years old benefited the most for memory, executive function and orientation by singing. For the patients with more advanced form of dementia, music listening led to the most cognitive enhancements.

Furthermore, singing and music listening also relieved depression for patients with mild Alzheimer's-type dementia, compared with the control group receiving standard care.

Another interesting fact noted by the researchers was that the patients’ musical background made no difference in the results.

Researchers advise that patients with dementia shouldengage in musical activities during the early stages of the disorder. Dr. Sarkamo even advises patients that they should be encouraged by their caregivers to sing regularly or join a community choir.

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“Given the increasing global prevalence and burden of dementia and the limited resources in public health care for persons with dementia and their family caregivers, it is important to find alternative ways to maintain and stimulate cognitive, emotional and social well-being in this population.” said Dr. Sarkamo.

“Especially stimulating and engaging activities, such as singing, seem to be very promising for maintaining memory functioning in the early stages of dementia.”

“In the later stages of dementia when the cognitive deficits are more severe, music listening could be a more easily applicable way,” Sarkamo concluded.

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Dementia Caregivers Want Robots for Joy and Sorrow to Take Care of Patients

Example of one of the robots designed by caregivers (Image Credit: Healthcare Robotics Lab/University of California San Diego)

A bit of robotic assistance can help people with dementia and their caregivers. Robots current available for the elderly help them around the house but there aren’t many robots that assist people with dementia. So, researchers at the University of California, San Diego wanted to find out what kinds of robots would actually help. They spent six months co-designing robots with informal caregivers for people with dementia, such as family members. 

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They found that caregivers wanted the robots to fulfill two major roles: support positive moments shared by caregivers and their loved ones; and lessen caregivers' emotional stress by taking on difficult tasks, such as answering repeated questions and restricting unhealthy food.


“Caregivers conceived of robots not only managing difficult aspects of caregiving -- but also for supporting joyful and fun activities,” said Laurel Riek, a professor of computer science at UC San Diego, and the paper's senior author.


For the study, the research team led by Riek built relationships with three different dementia day care centers in San Diego County, reportsUC-San Diego.

Image: Creative commons

Researchers conducted a series of interviews and hands-on workshops with caregivers.

• Based on the results of the six-month long community design process, the team identified various characteristics and designs a robot should have to support the caregivers and patients with dementia:
• Robots should help redirect conversations when repetitive questioning becomes burdensome
• Robots should be integrated into everyday objects that the people with dementia are already familiar with, or borrow features from those objects.
• Robots should be able to adapt to new situations and to the behavior of the person with dementia.
• Robots should be able to learn from end users, and customize and personalize their interaction and responses.
• Robots should have human-like components. That is not to say that they should look human. Rather the machines could, for example, use a real human voice or face.

·       Robots should have human-like components. That is not to say that they should look human. Rather the machines could, for example, use a real human voice or face.

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The researchers presented their findings at the Human Robot Interaction conference in South Korea.

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