Working on Asymmetry in Parkinson's Disease: a Double Blind, Randomized, Controlled Rehabilitation Trial.

The patients will be'blind' to the study protocol and will be randomly assigned to one of the three study arms: 1) physiotherapy aimed to potentiate the more affected body side (worst side improvement, WSI); 2) physiotherapy aimed to potentiate the less affected body side (best side improvement, BSI); 3) physiotherapy aimed to potentiate both sides equally (standard treatment, ST). Each group will be undergo physiotherapy twice a week for three months. Each session will have duration of one hour and include a first part of warming up, a final part of cooling down (these two parts are the same for all the groups) and an active part (which is different from group to group). The active part includes exercises which are alike for all the groups but with a number of repetitions different from group to group according to the aim of potentiating the most affected side (WSI) or the least affected side (BSI) or both sides equally (in this case the number of repetitions was the same for both sides; ST). Medical treatment will be kept stable through all the study duration; medications are expressed as levodopa daily dose equivalent (LEDD).