Background: Long-term physiotherapy is acknowledged to be crucial to manage motor symptoms for Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, but its effectiveness is not well understood.
Objective: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess the evidence regarding the effectiveness of long-term physiotherapy to improve motor symptoms and reduce antiparkinsonian medication dose in PD patients.
Methods: Pubmed, Cochrane, PEDro, and CINAHL were searched for randomized controlled trials before August 31, 2020 that investigated the effectiveness of physiotherapy for 6 months or longer on motor symptoms and levodopa-equivalent dose (LED) in PD patients with Hoehn and Yahr stage 1- 3. We performed random effects meta-analyses for long-term physiotherapy versus no/control intervention and estimated standard mean differences with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Levels of evidence were rated by the Grading of Recommendation Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach.
Results: From 2,940 studies, 10 studies involving 663 PD patients were assessed. Long-term physiotherapy had favorable effects on motor symptoms in off medication state [- 0.65, 95% CI - 1.04 to - 0.26, p = 0.001] and LED [- 0.49, 95% CI - 0.89to - 0.09, p = 0.02]. Subgroup analyses demonstrated favorable effects on motor symptoms in off medication state by aerobic exercise [- 0.42, 95% CI - 0.64 to - 0.20, p < 0.001] and LED by multidisciplinary rehabilitation of primarily physiotherapy [- 1.00, 95% CI - 1.44 to - 0.56, p < 0.001]. Quality of evidence for aerobic exercise and multidisciplinary rehabilitation were low and very low.
Conclusion: This review provided evidence that long-term physiotherapy has beneficial impact on motor symptoms and antiparkinsonian medication dose in PD patients and could motivate implementation of long-term physiotherapy.
Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; Physiotherapy; meta-analysis; motor symptoms; randomized controlled trial; systematic review.