Author(s): Natália Mariano Barboza, Isabela Andrelino de Almeida, Luana Beatriz Lemes, Cyntia Letícia Batistetti, Hevely Beatriz Celestino dos Santos, Alessander Danna-dos-Santos and Suhaila Mahmoud Smaili Santos
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive, degenerative neurological disorder associated to profound changes in the quality of life of its survivors. This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of a 16-week program of exercise-based interventions aiming to [1] improve motor symptoms and [2] provide social integration of PD patients. To achieve this goal, we analyzed the scores recorded by the Parkinson’s disease Quality of Life questionnaire (PDQL) before and after the intervention. Results revealed significant improvement in overall quality of life of our group of patients (p=0.002). The results also revealed significant improvements in scores recorded from two specific domains of the PDQL assessment tool; Parkinson Symptoms (p=0.002) and Social Functions (p=0.045). These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the 16-week exercise-based protocol proposed was effective to promote improvement in measurements of mobility and social integration of PD patients.
