Preference for using movement-prompting device linked to severity of Parkinson’s

Key takeaways:

• Eighteen adults with mild or moderate to severe PD used movement-prompting device.
• Patients with mild PD had a stronger preference for device, with ease-of-use concerns growing with disease progression.

CHICAGO — Preference for using a movement-prompting rehabilitation device was higher among adults with mild Parkinson’s disease, with safety concerns growing in those with more advanced disease, according to research.

“Physical therapy poses its own limitations, such as the cost or patients do not follow instructions after they finish therapy, so their motor symptoms just return or get worse,” Abigail Biddix, BSc, a research technician associate at Michigan Medicine, told Healio at the International Association of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders World Congress.

Seeking to address these limitations and prevent sedentarism in people with PD, Biddix and colleagues created a rehabilitation device that delivers movement cues to target various PD symptoms, which they tested in feasibility study of 18 patients with PD.

Participants (78% men; mean age, 71.28 years; mean disease duration, 11.39 years) completed a motor test battery and self-reported activity levels and were characterized according to Hoehn-Yahr staging (HY 2, mild, n = 10; HY = 2.5-4, moderate to severe, n = 8).

Patients participated in two sessions standing behind a height-adjustable desk while receiving cues from the device to initiate stepping, with breaks provided as needed. During each session, participants were asked to engage in familiar tasks such as computer work, puzzles or reading.

Participants completed a user acceptance questionnaire about their experience, which assessed difficulties using the device and personal preference for use. Scores were totaled as measures of acceptability and analyzed according to disease severity. Researchers also recorded total standing time, with a goal of at least 80% of participants standing for 60 minutes during the second session.

According to results, a higher score on the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living survey correlated with higher ratings on the preference portion of the questionnaire in participants with mild PD, suggesting a greater level of independence was associated with stronger preference for using the device.

In patients with moderate to severe PD, a longer duration of the Timed Up and Go test was linked to higher ratings on the usage difficulty portion of the questionnaire, indicating that slower movement is related to more safety concerns with the device.

Data also showed that during the second session, 83% of participants stood for at least 60 minutes without a break and 100% stood for at least 60 minutes with breaks.

“We are hoping this will serve as a rehab device in the future, and we are also going to be testing it in people with metabolic disorders, type 2 diabetes and office workers in general,” Biddix said.