February 2007
M A Hirsch, F M Hammond
The traditionally held belief about the treatment of
patients with neurodegenerative conditions is that they cannot benefit
from exercise training.2 For people with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s
disease, it was feared that exercise would increase the underlying
muscle tone. Exercise might worsen the condition and so was to be
avoided.
The paper by Niewboer et
al challenges this
assumption. It is groundbreaking in several important aspects. Firstly,
with 153 participants, the study is the largest trial on gait training
in Parkinson’s disease.
