Acute effects of an aerobic dual task on processing speed and attention in Parkinson's disease: a randomised...

Parkinson's disease (PD) causes a loss of functionality due to difficulty performing dual task (DT).

The aim of this study was to evaluate the acute interference of aerobic cycling DT on processing speed and attention in patients with PD.

A randomized controlled trial was carried out. Both groups of PD patients performed a cycling program using MOTOmed Viva 2 Parkinson. The control group only carried out the physical program, while the experimental group also carried out a cognitive task where they had to solve questions related to orientation, memory, calculation, language and similarities. Different variables were evaluated: Mini-Mental State Examination, Heart Rate, MOTOmed variables, and the Symbol Digit Modalities Test.

Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental group (n = 24) and the control group (n = 22). On the Symbol Digit Modalities Test, both groups showed significant improvements at pre-, post-, and pre-follow-up with medium and large effect sizes for the control group, and large and very large effect sizes for the experimental group. When stratifying the groups by cognitive status, participants without cognitive impairment showed significant improvements and a very large effect size on the Digits and Symbols Modalities Test, regardless of the group to which they belonged.

The DT developed on the MOTOmed cycling device is a safe intervention for people diagnosed with PD (stage 2-3) with or without mild or moderate cognitive impairment. This intervention, associated with a cognitive intervention, seems to show improvements in the speed of information processing.