Originally Posted by johnt

My interest in this topic started when I noticed that my tremor was reduced when travelling on trains. (That is, once I got over the stress of paying the high fares and fighting for a seat.) So, I've considered, but never got around to, building a vibration board; going, instead, down the forced exercise route. (This is related: vibration implies forced exercise.)

For a full text version of another paper by the same team on a similar subject see [1].

They used an amplitude of 3mm and a frequency of "6 Hz +/- 1 Hz/sec". ("Hz/sec" is not a typo on my part. If it was correct in the original, it means the rate of change of the frequency; but then the dimensions of the +/- are wrong.)

Note the frequency used is towards the higher end of the PD range, 4 - 6 Hz [2].

One needs to look at the results carefully: both the experimental and control groups showed improvements in postural control (in the second test 24% vs 11.3%).

I put the improvement in the control group down to learning, as opposed to a placebo effect. My advice to white rats, where working on your own, you are your own control group, is to start to measure your performance well before starting to white rat.

I'm pleased to hear tales of white rat experiences, good and bad: white ratting may be a therapy itself.

[1] "Effects of random whole-body vibration on postural control in Parkinson’s disease"
S Turbanski , CT Haas, A Friedrich, P Duisberg, D Schmidtbleicher
RESEARCH IN SPORTS MEDICINE – AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL 3/2005, 243-256

http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/fb/fb05/..._s_Disease.pdf

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signs_a...'s_disease

John