Exercise Neuroprotection in Parkinson's Disease

Summary

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships of exercise on inflammation in the body of older adults and people with Parkinson's disease (PD). This is important research for older adults but is especially important for people with PD because neuroinflammation is the main pathological mechanism that is responsible for neuron cell death in this neurodegenerative disease. As PD is a progressive disease, halting or slowing the degeneration is an important research target. Halting or slowing the disease progress is known as neuroprotection. Exercise is an attractive therapeutic treatment for people with PD as it has a lot of multi-systemic benefits, but also there is a lot of evidence to suggest that it helps improve symptoms and slow the progression of the disease. Exercise has been theorized to decrease inflammation and, therefore, has a lot of promise as a neuroprotective agent in slowing or halting the degeneration in PD. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of research that has looked into the effect of exercise on the biological processes of inflammation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate the biological evidence that underlies the positive effect of exercise in people with PD.

Eligibility

Inclusion criteria for PwP:

* 30-85 years old
* Neurologist-diagnosed PD
* Able to participate in 30 minutes of continuous moderate aerobic exercise with 2-3 short breaks per self-report.

Inclusion criteria for controls:

* 30-85 years old
* No major medical diagnoses
* Able to participate in 30 minutes of continuous moderate aerobic exercise with 2-3 short breaks per self-report.

Exclusion Criteria for both PD group and controls:

* Diagnoses, identified by self-report, that would preclude exercise participation (e.g., heart arrhythmias, uncontrolled blood pressure, exercise-induced asthma).
* Those not deemed ready for exercise participation. Participants will be screened for exercise participation using the Physical Activities Readiness Questionnaire + which is used as a screening tool for all ages to identify risk factors that would clear someone for participation in moderate physical exercise.
* Those with dementia will be excluded because there are self-report questionnaires in this study. This will be identified using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and a score at or below a 21. Participants with mild cognitive impairment and no impairment will be included.

Conditions2

Locations1 site

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