The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if a proactive swallow exercise will help to improve swallow fitness in patients with Parkinson's disease.
The aim of the study is to assess how effective this exercise is and to measure the change in swallowing fitness from the beginning to the end of the study.
Patients who are given the exercise training will be compared to participants who are treated using the usual standard treatment.
Patients will have 6 weeks of twice-weekly SwallowFIT training. Each session will be an hour long.
Adult S-VWP between >35-90 years of age
Diagnosis of Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease [IDP] (either or suspected, tremor-predominant or rigid predominant)
Disability level of Hoehn & Yahr stages II-III as indicated in their most recent neurological evaluation
Swallowing concern, confirmed by Modified Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale [MDS-UPDRS]-
Classified as Hoehn and Yahr stages IV
Unable to follow 2 step commands
History of other neurological disease potentially causing dysphagia
Dementia (MMSE<20; Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) ≤ 20)
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Lead sponsor
United States Department of Defense
Collaborator