Rehabilitation of Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease for which there is currently no definitive cure. Rehabilitation therapy is increasingly used as an adjuvant of pharmacological and neurosurgical treatments and is mainly addressed to the management of walking and balance disorders. Numerous studies have shown the association between cognitive deficits and gait or balance performance of patients with PD. Various approaches integrating cognitive and motor aspects of rehabilitation (cueing training, dual-task training, motor imagery, action observation, augmented feedback and virtual reality) have been recently proposed. Such approaches share a solid pathophysiological background of enhanced plasticity and have been shown to induce significant benefits improving gait ability, reducing fall risk, ameliorating dexterity and quality of life.