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Exercise Helps PD Patients Keep Walking
By Nancy Walsh,

Three different exercise programs all improved the walking ability of Parkinson's disease patients, though in somewhat different ways, a study found.
Note that only the stretching/resistance group showed improvements in strength, with an increase of 16% compared with 2% to 8% for the treadmill groups.

Three different exercise programs improved the walking ability of Parkinson's disease patients, though in somewhat different ways, researchers reported.

Low-intensity treadmill exercise led to a 12% increase in distance achieved on the 6-minute walk test (P=0.001 compared with baseline), according to Lisa Shulman, MD, of the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and colleagues.

Resistance and stretching exercises also resulted in a significant 9% increase (P<0.02), but only a nonsignificant 6% improvement was seen for high-intensity treadmill exercise (P=0.07), Shulman and colleagues reported online in Archives of Neurology.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurolog...sDisease/35768
The study was funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, the Baltimore VA Medical Center, Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, the National Institute on Aging, and the VA Office of Rehabilitation Research and Development