Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a 12-week vigorous exercise program to improve primarily cognition and secondarily motor function and quality of life in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) using a delayed start design.

Background: In PD, exercise has been shown to improve motor function including gait, stability, and joint excursion. There is growing evidence from research in other neurodegenerative disorders that exercise has a positive effect on cognition. A similar effect is emerging in PD, but to date studies have had a limited exercise dose and cognitive testing.

Methods: Twenty-two participants with PD were recruited and evaluated for primarily cognition, secondarily for motor function and quality of life three times during a 24-week period. Each group received a 12-week vigorous exercise program (3x/week for 50 min) either immediately or with a 12-week delay after the initial evaluation. Two analyses were done, the first compared the immediate start group with the delayed start group as the control using paired t-tests. The second analysis compared changes in outcomes immediately pre- and post-exercise in all participants.

Results: In general, there were no differences in outcomes at baseline between the immediate start and delayed start exercise groups. Trends in cognitive measures suggest cognition was slightly improved in the immediate start group compared to the delayed start group. In the comparison of pre- to post-exercise, vigorous exercise levels increased over the 12-week exercise period (p<0.05) and motor function was significantly improved (UPDRS III). A trend of improved cognitive and quality of life measures was also observed in this comparison, in particular with an improvement in working memory.

Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that PD motor function was improved after a 12-week vigorous exercise program. Cognition and quality of life were improving in the expected direction. A larger sample size would be necessary to show a beneficial effect of exercise on cognition in PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/effects-of-a-12-week-exercise-program-on-cognition-in-parkinsons-disease/