Objective: To study the effect of exercise on parkinson disease symptoms, level of motivation inpatients with PD

Background: Regular exercise improves bradykinesia, gait and balance in Parkinson’s disease (PD)

Methodology: We conducted a questionnaire regarding exercise habits in 307 patients with PD

Results: In this study, we enrolled 307 patients with PD with mean age of 62±7.7 years(age range42-78 years)and male: female ratio 5:1. Presenting symptoms include rigidity (40%), tremors (29%), bradykinesia (24%) and balance issues (8%) and dyskinesias and falls (1% each). Patients reported subjective improvement in rigidity (21%), tremors (15%), gait (8%) and bradykinesia (2%) with regular exercise. Doctors advised exercise in 78% of patients at every visit, occasionally in 20% patients. Among PD patients, only 6% exercise regularly, 10% at times and 83% do not exercise at all[figure1]. There was no correlation between education level and exercise. Patients with early PD < 3 years duration exercised more than those with advanced disease. Out of the exercising patients, 54% started exercising after developing PD. Types of physical activity include walking (25%), brisk walking (2%), running/jogging (2%), yoga (4%), tennis (2%), strengthening exercises (2%) and stretching (8%) and 55% of patients practice multiple types of exercises together [figure 3]. Patients described improvement in general health, PD symptoms, someone regularly pushing to exercise, support groups as their motivational factors. Most patients (98%) couldn’t exercise due to their PD symptoms. There was no correlation between education level and exercise. Patients with early PD< 3 years duration exercised more than those with advanced disease [figure 2]. Most patients exercised for 31-60 min/day (50%). Overall,62% of patients felt that their PD symptoms improved with exercise, 31% didn’t notice any improvement and 8% were not sure of any improvement.

Conclusions: Exercise improved symptoms of PD in 62% patients with predominant improvement in rigidity in 40% cases. Only 16% of PD patients exercise indicating the need to increase emphasis and awareness about exercise.

*This Work was presented at the 8th Asia Oceanic Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Conference (AOPMC), held at Kolkata, India, between March 16th – 19th 2023.