Objective: Gait disturbance lowers activities of daily living in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and related disorders. However, the effectiveness of pharmacological, surgical and rehabilitative treatments is limited. We recently developed a novel neuromodulation approach using gait-combined closed-loop transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) for healthy volunteers and patients who are post-stroke, and achieved significant entrainment of gait rhythm and an increase in gait speed. Here, we tested the efficacy of this intervention in patients with Parkinsonian gait disturbances.
Methods: Twenty-three patients were randomly assigned to a real intervention group using gait-combined closed-loop oscillatory tES over the cerebellum at the frequency of individualised comfortable gait rhythm, and to a sham control group.
Results: Ten intervention sessions were completed for all patients and showed that the gait speed (F (1, 21)=13.0, p=0.002) and stride length (F (1, 21)=8.9, p=0.007) were significantly increased after tES, but not after sham stimulation. Moreover, gait symmetry measured by swing phase time (F (1, 21)=11.9, p=0.002) and subjective feelings about freezing (F (1, 21)=14.9, p=0.001) were significantly improved during gait.
Conclusions: These findings showed that gait-combined closed-loop tES over the cerebellum improved Parkinsonian gait disturbances, possibly through the modulation of brain networks generating gait rhythms. This new non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention could be a breakthrough in restoring gait function in patients with PD and related disorders.
Keywords: ELECTRICAL STIMULATION; GAIT; PARKINSON'S DISEASE; REHABILITATION.
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