Physical Exercise and Survival in Parkinson's Disease: A Cohort Study

To estimate the overall survival rate, disease stage, age of people with Parkinson's disease, and time since diagnosis and in relation to physical exercise. Retrospective-prospective longitudinal observational analysis of two cohorts (2018 and 2022) of physical exercise from retrospective randomized clinical trials. The intervention time for the 2018 cohort was 2,100 days and for the 2020 cohort, 800 days. The dependent variable was overall survival, and the independent variables were sociodemographic and clinical variables from the prospective period. This study comprised two distinct cohort groups: the physical exercise group (PEG) and the nonphysical exercise group (NPEG). The Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine independent predictors of survival, and Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate the survival curve. Sixty people with Parkinson's disease (69.5 ± 9.4 years) were included in the study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The log-rank test revealed non-significant mortality rates among people with Parkinson's disease who participated in the PEG and NPEG (p = .120); however, associating the groups with the disease stage showed a lower mortality rate (p = .001) in the groups with the disease stage in the initial predicted values, as well as age, when the cutoff point was 80 years (p = .022). The overall survival rates of the participants were affected by the interaction of age and the disease stage of the PEG compared to the NPEG, but there was no association of time in days with the disease.