Therapeutic Routes for Movement Disorders in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease: A Narrative Review Study

Abstract

Introduction: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive and chronic disorder that has one of the fastest worldwide growths among the neurological diseases. The main problem of the patients with PD is the loss of dopamine producing cells in their nervous system, which causes symptoms such as tremors, slowness of movements, walking disorder and postural instability. Parkinson's disease, by affecting the neuromuscular system as well as the proprioceptive feedback integration and processing, can lead to postural instability and falling of the patients. Treatments included pharmaceutical therapy, electrotherapy, and new methods of brain stimulation and exercise therapy. The pharmaceutical therapy is the most important part of treatment, but it comes with side effects for the patients. Electrotherapy and exercise therapy have been widely used to treat the patients' movement disorders. This narrative review study aimed to mention various routes of pharmaceutical therapy and electrotherapy methods, and then focused on exercise therapy to reduce movement disorders in the patients with PD.

Conclusion: Stretching and resistance exercises, performing yoga and tai chi movements, as well as using the virtual reality system caused reduced displacement of the center of pressure while standing, increased speed of walking, improved quality of life and reduced frequency of falls.