Brains Matter!
Vol. 1, No. 1
November 2015
Using Cognitive Training to Help Parkinson’s Patients
Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is not just a
movement disorder. In addition to tremors,
problems with gait, balance, and muscular
rigidity, patients also develop cognitive
impairments that involve slow mental processing speed, working memory deficits,
and impairments in executive functioning.
These deficits are generally not responsive
to current pharmacological interventions
(Seppi, et al., 2011). Individuals who experience these types of cognitive difficulties when they are first diagnosed are
likely to develop dementia 80% of the
time (Weintraub, et al., 2015).
A recent meta-analysis by Leung, et al.
(2015), published in Neurology, found evidence that cognitive training was effective for improving working memory,
mental processing speed and executive
functioning in patients with PD. While
these research findings were limited to a
small number of studies, this systematic
review provided promising evidence that
for some people with PD, cognitive training has the potential to improve their cognitive functioning, and that at least some
patients are likely to benefit from this therapy. Many research questions in this area
remain unanswered, including the effectiveness of cognitive training for people
with more severe cognitive symptoms of
PD, the potential impact of cognitive
training for improving activities of daily
living, whether early intervention is the
best approach, recommendations for the
intensity and frequency of the implementation of cognitive rehabilitation therapy,
and how to best target cognitive training
for the various sub-groups of the PD population.
In summary, these research findings
suggest that health care professionals consider providing cognitive rehabilitation
services as part of their comprehensive
treatment plan.
For more information about this research and studies, click here.
References
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Seppi K, Weintraub D, Coelho M, et al. The Movement Disorder Society evidence-based medicine
review update: treatments for the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord
2011;26(suppl 3):S42–S80.
Leung IHK, Walton CC, Hallock H, Lewis SJG, Valenzuela M, Lampit A. Cognitive training in
Parkinson disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurology 2015;85:1843–1851.
Weintraub D, Simuni T, Caspell-Garcia C, et al. Cognitive performance and neuropsychiatric
symptoms in early, untreated Parkinson’s disease. Mov Disord 2015;30: 919–927.
Improving balance for Parkinson’s patients using Neurofeedback
Research completed at the University of Mashad evaluated the
benefit of neurofeedback training
in helping patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) improve balance. These researchers found a
significant improvement in balancing ability for the treatment group
compared to a control group in
only eight sessions.
PD subjects were randomly divided into experimental and control
groups, and only the experimental
group received neurofeedback. The
researchers assessed pre and post-test measures of both static and
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dynamic balance using the Biodex and Berg scales. The measures
of balance did not differ significantly between the experimental
and control groups at the beginning of the study. After the experimental group completed neurofeedback therapy, both groups
were retested. The control group had an overall improvement of
11% in their balancing abilities. The experimental treatment
group had an average improvement of 145%, as measured by the
changes in the balance scales. The neurofeedback training protocol was comprised of up-training Beta1 (15-18 Hz) and downtraining Theta (4-8 Hz). The researchers concluded that
neurofeedback training was clinically effective in reducing the
balance problems that almost always occur for patients with PD.
For more information about this research, click here.
Learn about the Biodex Scale here.
Info about using the Berg Scale is here.
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