Effects of Health Qigong Exercises on Physical Function on Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Purpose To measure motor function improvements in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) using Health Qigong exercises. Patients and Methods Fifty-two PD patients (Hoehn and Yahr stages I to IV) were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Twenty-six PD patients in the experimental group were intervened with routine medicine and fitness Qigong exercise. The other 26 PD patients as the control group were treated only with regular medication. Twelve-week intervention had been conducted for the study, and participants completed the scheduled exercises 4 times per week for 60 minutes each time. Data which included the one-legged blind balance, physical coordination, and gait was collected before, during, and after the intervention. Comparisons were made between the experimental and control groups through the repeated measures analysis of variance. Results A total of 40 participants (77% response rate) completed the study. There was no significant difference in baseline data. After 12 weeks of Health Qigong therapy, the length of time the one-legged blind balance test had increased (P < 0.01), and the time it took to TUG test was reduced (P < 0.01). Joint range of motion and gait significantly improved. The control group’s there were no significant differences in the above variables, except for joint range of motion, which decreased. Conclusion Health Qigong exercises can significantly improve physical functions in patients with PD, especially for the balance ability, gait, joint range of motion in patients with PD. It can reduce their activity risk factor and improve their quality of life.

Detraining Slows and Maintenance Training Over 6 Years Halts Parkinsonian Symptoms-Progression

“…These changes exceed those reported previously after various forms of aquatic and land-based aerobic and weight-shift exercises (2,3,14,17,18,47). To illustrate the potency of our 15-session, high-intensity multi-sensory exercise stimulus, the 6.7-s improvement in TUG (d = 2.82, p < 0.001, Figure 3) was 3-fold greater than the 2.2-s (p < 0.01) change reported after a 12-week-long, weight-shiftfocused Qigong therapy (5).…”

“…The drugs are still the primary symptom-moderators in people with PD (PwPD), as the lesion surgeries and deep brain stimulation cannot halt the progression of the underlying neurodegenerative processes (4). Physical exercise has been also used as an adjuvant to the drugs to reduce the motor and nonmotor PD-symptoms and improve quality of life (2,3,(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). The potency of exercise is revealed by the 21 year delay in the clinical manifestation of PD in the physically active individuals (20).…”

Efficacy of Traditional Chinese Exercise in Improving Gait and Balance in Cases of Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…0: does not meet the criteria; 1: meets the criteria. Criteria 2022; Amano et al, 2013;Choi et al, 2013;Gao et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2016;Kurt et al, 2018;Lee et al, 2018;Vergara-Diaz et al, 2018;Wan et al, 2021) were deemed eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The two researchers have the same rate of research selection and data extraction as 4 and 82%, respectively.…”

“…Table 1 lists the characteristics of each of the included studies, which were published between 2006 and 2022. Seven studies were conducted in China (Gao et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2016;Wan et al, 2021;Li et al, 2022), four in the USA (Hackney and Earhart, 2008;Li et al, 2012;Amano et al, 2013;Vergara-Diaz et al, 2018), two in Korea (Choi et al, 2013;Lee et al, 2018), one in Germany (Schmitz-Hübsch et al, 2006), and one in Turkey (Kurt et al, 2018). The TCE program was used to treat PD in all experimental groups, with nine studies using Tai Chi and six studies using Qigong.…”

“…The quality of the studies ranged between fair and good (score range: 5-9 points), with 80% of studies being classified as good quality and 12% as fair quality. Nine studies used a concealed allocation procedure (Schmitz-Hübsch et al, 2006;Li et al, 2012Li et al, , 2022Gao et al, 2014;Zhang et al, 2015;Kurt et al, 2018;Lee et al, 2018;Vergara-Diaz et al, 2018;Wan et al, 2021), and all reported random assignment. We could not blind patients and therapists because this was an interventional movement study.…”