[Functional electrical stimulation effect on the motor performances in Parkinsonian patients]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease involving dopaminergic, cholinergic, glutaminergic, serotoninergic and noradrenergic neurons, having as clinical manifestations both motor and non-motor symptoms. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) is a complementary therapy that can improve the motor disabilities (i.e. bradykinesia, hypokynesia and the motor block/"freezing"). THE AIM of this study is to assess, by clinical scales and tests, the influence of FES on motor symptoms in Parkinsonian patients and to establish the differences in motor learning with healthy subjects.

26 PD patients and 15 healthy volunteers were included in the study. The two groups of subjects were clinically assessed at two different points in time: before and after ten consecutive days of FES exercise for 30 min/day on the most affected/less skilful upper and lower limb.

All of the clinical tests revealed bilaterally improvements in both groups, mainly in PD patients group, even if the FES application was unilaterally.

Unilateral peripheral electrostimulation improves bilaterally motor performances due to an interhemispheric transfer called "cross education". This phenomenon seems to be more pronounced in Parkinsonian patients because of the alteration of cortical inhibition.