ABSTRACT

Background: The name of Parkinson’s disease is attributed to James Parkinson who first described the disease in 1987 in a treatise called “An essay on shaking palsy”. As Parkinson’s disease disturbs the locomotion of an individual it results in a substantial reduction in quality of life. Impairment in the temporal stability is worse in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Conventional Physiotherapy and Conventional Physiotherapy. The objectives of the study were to find the effect of conventional physiotherapy, conventional physiotherapy with auditory cues and the efficacy between conventional physiotherapy and conventional physiotherapy with auditory cues on the gait of subjects with Parkinson’s disease.

Methods: 30 Subjects with moderate Parkinson’s disease participated in the study and were randomly assigned into two groups. Group I received conventional physiotherapy only and group II received conventional physiotherapy with auditory cues. The gait parameters namely stride length; cadence and speed were noted before the intervention. The study duration was 4 weeks and at the end of the study period the parameters were re-assessed and the statistical analysis were done.

Results: The gait parameters were significantly improved (p<.001) in the group I undergoing conventional physiotherapy and there was also a significant improvement (p< .001) in the gait parameters of  group II.

Conclusion: The study has concluded that auditory cues can be a useful tool   in rehabilitation of patients with Parkinson’s disease for improvement of gait.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, Conventional Physiotherapy, Auditory cues, Gait parameters.