Nordic Walking and Walking in Parkinson's disease: a randomized single-blind controlled trial

Introduction Non-pharmacological interventions are increasingly being acknowledged as valuable options to overcome or reduce functional problems in patients with Parkinson's disease. In the last decades, Nordic Walking was employed and investigated by rehabilitation specialists. Clinical trials on the effect of Nordic Walking on motor and non-motor Parkinson's disease symptoms are few, small, and heterogeneous for inclusion criteria and intervention protocols. As a result, Nordic Walking training cannot be recommended as a standard rehabilitative tool in Parkinson's disease patients. Methods This randomized controlled single-blind trial recruited Parkinson's disease patients at a Hoehn and Yahr stage between 2 and 3 assigned to a Nordic Walking vs. Walking group. Subjects were extensively assessed for motor and non-motor symptoms at baseline and after 8 weeks of intervention period. To study the effects of intervention on the overall sample, paired-samplettest and Wilcoxon signed rank test were used, while differences between groups were estimated with general linear models repeated-measure and Mann-WhitneyUtest. Results Among 32 patients who ended the study period, improvements were observed in the following assessments: global motor outcome (p0.001), dynamic and static balance ability (p0.005;p0.002), global non-motor symptoms outcome (p0.003), fatigue (p0.016), anxiety (p0.043), and quality of life (p0.003). The treatment group (Nordic Walking) failed to show any difference compared to the control group (Walking) in all considered outcomes. Conclusion Nordic Walking was not superior compared to Walking in the studied population. Moderate intensity outdoor group activities like Nordic Walking and Walking seem to improve motor and non-motor symptoms parameters in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Automated summary

Non-pharmacological interventions, such as Nordic Walking and Walking, were compared in a randomized controlled trial for patients with Parkinson's disease. While both activities showed improvements in various symptoms, Nordic Walking did not demonstrate superiority over Walking in this study. Outdoor group activities at moderate intensity appear to be beneficial for both motor and non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease patients.