Effects of a Dance and Walking Program on Gait and Quality of Life in People With Parkinson's Disease
Effects of a Dance and Walking Program on Gait and Quality of Life in People With Parkinson's Disease
Parkinson's disease (PD), characterized as progressive and neurodegenerative, is one of the most frequent neurological diseases of the present time. Patients with PD present motor impairment, such as muscle stiffness, rest tremor, slow movements, postural instability, and gait and balance alterations; And non-motor factors, such as cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders, depressive symptoms, and a consequent decrease in quality of life (QL). Dance can be an important tool for the complementary treatment of these patients, when added to traditional drug therapies and physiotherapies. Thus, the present study aims to verify the effects of a program of dance and walking in gait and QL of 38 adults with PD, divided in two groups, and to compare the aspects of functionality, dynamic stability, kinematics and QL. The data collection instruments will be a personal data sheet of the patients, the Hoehn and Yahr Scale (H&Y), the Rehabilitation Index (RI), the motor part of the Unified PD Rating Scale (UPDRS III), the Timed Up ang Go test (TUG), the kinematic analysis of walking and the Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 20.0 will be used to analyze the data, using the Wilcoxon test for non-parametric data and the paired t-test for parametric data, in order to compare pre and post intervention data. The significance level adopted for both tests will be p <0.05. It is expected that a program of 24 sessions of dance classes will be as or more effective than a program of 24 walking sessions for the gait quality and QL for the participants of the study.
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