Adapted motor activity with pleasant music in Parkinson’s disease: a comparative study.

Introduction: Adapted motor activity with pleasant music (AMAPM) may improve the motor performances, may activate positive emotions and enhance the quality of life of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Objective: The main goal of the study is to highlight some clinical differences between two groups of patients affected by Parkinson’s disease, by comparing 30 subjects (mean age: 71.9 ± 6.8) following a program of AMAPM (Group 1) with 30 subjects (mean age: 70.6 ± 7.4) who do not participate in such activity (Group 2). Psychiatric symptoms, quality of life and caregiver burden were measured in order to investigate correlations with disease duration. Methods: All the subjects were patients with idiopatic PD with mild to moderate motor impairment, without cognitive impairment and not very dependent (Schwab and England [50 %), evaluated in ‘‘ON’’ condition, not treated with Apomorphine or PEG. The patients were tested with MMSE, UPDRS, GHQ-28, GDS, PDSS-2, PDQ-39 and CBI. Results: The two groups are homogeneous in the activities of daily life (UPDRS II) and in motor performance (UPDRS III). We found significant differences between the two groups for almost all the other variables. Group 2 shows higher prevalence of psychiatric symptoms (67 vs. 20 %; p.00001), depressive symptoms (43 vs. 7 %; p.0001) and sleep disorders (p.01). In Group 2 the quality of life is more impaired (p.001) and the impact of the disease on caregivers is greater (p.01). Finally, the severity of psychiatric symptoms (GHQ-28 total score) correlates positively with disease duration only in Group 2 (p.05). Conclusion: The subjects participating to the AMAPM show better psychological condition and better quality of life, and their disease causes lower burden on the caregivers than those who do not perform such activity. The duration of the disease has a negative effect on psychopathological symptoms only in PD patients not participating in AMAPM.