Exercise Improves Cognition in Parkinson's Disease: The PRET-PD Randomized, Clinical Trial

Further support to suggest that exercise has effects beyond just keeping you fit in PD. 

This is a small study in subjects without dementia. It was well conducted - randomised and single blinded (investigators but not patients). At baseline, the treatment groups were similar, which suggests an even distribution of measured and unmeasured confounding factors. The effects are clinically meaningful and statistically significant despite the modest sample size... very interesting!

Mov Disord. 2015 Jul 6. doi: 10.1002/mds.26291. [Epub ahead of print]

David FJ, Robichaud JA, Leurgans SE, Poon C, Kohrt WM, Goldman JG, Comella CL, Vaillancourt DE, Corcos DM.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mds.26291/full

BACKGROUND:

This article reports on the findings of the effect of two structured exercise interventions on secondary cognitive outcomes that were gathered as part of the Progressive Resistance Exercise Training in Parkinson's disease (PD) randomized, controlled trial.

METHODS:

This study was a prospective, parallel-group, single-center trial. Fifty-one nondemented patients with mild-to-moderate PD were randomly assigned either to modified Fitness Counts (mFC) or to Progressive Resistance Exercise Training (PRET) and were followed for 24 months. Cognitive outcomes were the Digit Span, Stroop, and Brief Test of Attention (BTA).

RESULTS:

Eighteen patients in mFC and 20 patients in PRET completed the trial. At 12 and at 24 months, no differences between groups were observed. At 12 months, relative to baseline, mFC improved on the Digit Span (estimated change: 0.3; interquartile range: 0, 0.7; P = 0.04) and Stroop (0.3; 0, 0.6; P = 0.04), and PRET improved only on the Digit Span (0.7; 0.3, 1; P < 0.01). At 24 months, relative to baseline, mFC improved on the Digit Span (0.7; 0.3, 1.7; P < 0.01) and Stroop (0.3; 0.1, 0.5; P = 0.03), whereas PRET improved on the Digit Span (0.5; 0.2, 0.8; P < 0.01), Stroop (0.2; -0.1, 0.6; P = 0.048), and BTA (0.3; 0, 0.8; P = 0.048). No neurological or cognitive adverse events were observed.

CONCLUSIONS:

This study provides class IV level of evidence that 24 months of PRET or mFC may improve attention and working memory in nondemented patients with mild-to-moderate Parkinson's disease.