RESEARCH ARTICLE


Effects of Chronic Exercise on Severity, Quality of Life and Functionality in an Elderly Parkinson’s Disease Patient: Case Report



Eduardo Lattari 1, Pedro Paulo Pereira-Junior 2, Geraldo Albuquerque Maranhão Neto 2, Murilo Khede Lamego 1, Antonio Marcos de Souza Moura 1, Alberto Souza de Sá 1, Ridson Rosa Rimes 1, João Paulo Manochio 1, Oscar Arias-Carrión 3, Gioia Mura 4, Antonio E Nardi 1, Sergio Machado 1, 2, *
1 Panic & Respiration Laboratory, Institute of Psychiatry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil; National Institute for Translational Medicine (INCT-TM), Brazil
2 Physical Activity Neuroscience, Physical Activity Postgraduate Program, Salgado de Oliveira University (UNIVERSO), Niterói - RJ, Brazil;
3 Unidad de Trastornos de Movimiento y Sueño, Hospital General Dr. Manuel Gea Gonzalez, Secretaria de Salud México DF, México
4 Department of Public Health, Clinical and Molecular Medicine. University of Cagliari, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© Lattari et al.; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Institute of Psychiatry of Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IPUB/UFRJ), Brazil; E-mail: secm80@gmail.com


Abstract

Exercise produces potential influences on physical and mental capacity in patients with neuropsychiatric disorders, and can be made a viable form of therapy to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD). We report the chronic effects of a regular physical exercise protocol on cognitive and motor functions, functional capacity, and symptoms in an elderly PD patient without dementia. The patient participated of a program composed of proprioceptive, aerobic and flexibility exercises, during 1 hour, three days a week, for nine months. Patient used 600 mg of L-DOPA daily, and 1 hour prior to each exercise session. Assessment was conducted in three stages, 0-3, 3-6 and 6 to 9 months, using percentual variation to the scales Hoehn and Yahr, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Parkinson Activity Scale (PAS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS-III). Reassessment showed clear changes in clinical parameters for Hoehn and Yahr (4 to 2.5), MMSE (14 to 22), PAS (13 to 29), BDI (9 to 7) and UPDRS-III (39 to 27) at the end of 9 months. According to our data, exercise seems to be effective in promoting the functional capacity and the maintenance of cognitive and motor functions of PD patients. Regular exercise protocols can be implemented as an adjunctive treatment for reducing the severity of PD.

Keywords: Exercise, functional capacity, Parkinson’s disease, severity..