The Parkinson’s disease rehabilitation is to establish a new neural network like the normal one in functions. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease that afflicts many elderly people. Patients with PD will have severe life dysfunction in their later stages of life.
Currently there is no cure for the disease, only drugs are available for patients to control their symptoms and alleviate their motor symptoms. In addition to drug therapy, rehabilitation training is also a very good choice.
What is Parkinson’s Disease Rehabilitation?
Occupational therapy
The main purpose of occupational therapy is to maintain and improve upper limb function and improve daily life self-care ability of patients. Occupational therapy is suitable for patients with mental or cognitive impairment. Knitting, tethering, typing and other activities can increase the range of joint motion and improve hand functions. In addition, training like dressing, eating, washing face, gargling, writing, and housework are also important to patients rehabilitation.
Physiotherapy
1. Relaxation training
It helps patients to move their limbs and trunk muscles rhythmically;
Joint range of motion training instructs patients to move whole body joints, each joint move 3-5 times. Move slowly and gently to avoid excessive stretching and cause pain.
2. Muscle strength training
Focus on practicing the chest muscles, abdominal muscles, and back muscles.
Trunk training: trunk flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation training;
Abdominal muscle training: knee flexion to the chest training in supine position, straight leg raise training in supine position, and sit-up training in supine position.
Lumbodorsal muscle training: five-point support training, three-point support training;
Gluteal muscle training: alternately raise the lower limb by extending the knee in the prone position.
3. Balance training
Balance function is the basis of maintaining normal body position, walking, and completing various transfer movement.
Patient sits on the bed with their feet stepping flat on the ground and some objects around. Patients take items from one side to the other with their left or right hand, and practice repeatedly. In addition, patients can start training from sitting to standing repeatedly, thus gradually improving their speed and stability of standing.
4. Walking training
Walking is a process in which the human body center of gravity moves continuously on the basis of good postural control and balance ability. Walking training mainly corrects abnormal gait in patients.
Walking training requires patients to do forward and backward stride exercise. Meanwhile, they can also walk with mark or 5-7cm obstacles on the floor. Of course, they can also do stepping, arm swing, and other exercises.
Suspension walking training mainly uses suspension bandages to suspend part of the patient’s body, which reduces the weight loading of patients’ lower limbs and improves their walking ability. If the training goes with treadmill, the effect will be better.
5. Sports therapy
The principle of sports therapy is to inhibit abnormal movement patterns and learn normal ones. Individualized training program is important in sports therapy, and the enthusiasm of patients should be fully enhanced during the training process. As long as patients train actively can the training efficacy be improved.
Physical therapy
1. Low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
2. Transcranial direct current stimulation
3. External Cue Training
Language therapy and swallowing training
Patients with Parkinson’s disease have dysarthria, which can affect speech rhythm, the storage of self-spoken information, and the comprehension of written or oral commands.
Speech therapy for Parkinson’s patients requires more spoken and practice. In addition, the correct pronunciation of each word is important. Patients can start from sound and vowel to the pronunciation of each word and phrase. They can practice facing the mirror so that they can observe their mouth shape, tongue position and facial muscle expression, and practice the movement of lip and tongue to make their pronunciation clear and accurate.
Dysphagia is one of the common symptoms of digestive system dysfunction in Parkinson’s patients. Its symptoms are mainly difficulty in eating, especially in eating hard food.
Swallowing training aims at functional intervention of swallowing-related organs, including pharyngeal reflex training, closed glottis training, supraglottic swallowing training, and empty swallowing training, as well as training of the mouth, face, and tongue muscles.
Post time: Nov-17-2020