Moderate Versus High Volume Light-Moderate Intensity Exercise for People With Moderate Parkinson's Disease

Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age40+
SponsorVA Office of Research and Development

About this trial

Veterans with mid to later stage Parkinson's disease (PD) may not be able to work out as hard as they need to, to prevent brain cell loss. Maybe they could work out longer and more frequently to make up for this during their good times and good weeks and then rest during the bad weeks. The investigators will compare how effective working out a lot one week per month with a break of three weeks is to continuously exercising weekly with no breaks in people with mid stage PD. The investigators will look at how fast participants walk per minute, whether they become more physically active, the biochemicals in their blood, and at how stiff their blood vessels are before and after the exercise.

Eligibility criteria

Qualifiers

MoCA score >17

Able to walk with or without an assistive device at least 10 feet

Best corrected/aided acuity better than 20/70 in the better eye

Willingness to be randomized to a treatment group

Disqualifiers

Untreated Major Depression and major psychiatric illness

History of stroke, or traumatic brain injury

Pure-tone threshold average sensitivity at 0.5, 1.0,and 2.0 kHz exceeds 40 dB

Alcohol abuse and/or use of antipsychotics

Trial design

Treatments tested in this trial

  • HV-PDAE: High Volume Partnered Dance Aerobic Exercise
  • MV-PDAE: Moderate Volume Partnered Dance Aerobic Exercise
  • MV-WALK: Moderate Volume Walking

Treatment groups

123 Participants
are divided into 3 treatment groups