Effects of Different Physical Therapies and Dance on Clinical and Functional Parameters, Muscle Quality, Pendular Mechanism of the Gait and Brain-derived Neurotrophic Factor in People With Parkinson's Disease

Analyze the effects of different physical therapies (Aquatic Jogging, Neurofunctional Physiotherapy, Pilates Training and Nordic Walking) and Dance and compare with unsupervised home exercises in the clinical-functional parameters, postural balance, muscular echographic quality, pendulum gait mechanism, and serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in people with Parkinson's disease with camptocormia or Pisa Syndrome. Experimental Design: Randomized controlled clinical trial with translational study characteristics. Search Location: Exercise Research Laboratory at the School of Physical Education, Physiotherapy and Dance, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and in the Movement Disorders Outpatient Clinic of the Hospital of Clinicals of Porto Alegre, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Participants: 100 patients from the Unified Health System (UHS) of both sexes, from 50 to 80 years old, diagnosed with idiopathic PD, sedentary. Interventions: In this research, four groups of patients with PD will receive intervention during 4 months of different physical therapy programs (Nordic walking, aquatic jogging and supervised neurofunctional physiotherapy) and dance; and a control group, who will receive telephone guidance for performing home-based exercises. The training programs will have a duration of 4 months and will be periodized so that the duration of the sessions is matched between them. The intensity of the interval training will be manipulated by the subjective effort scale (Borg) and by the heart rate, with predetermined series durations. All training programs will have a frequency of two sessions per week and a duration of 60 minutes. In order to evaluate the effects of the training, evaluations will be performed before and after the training period: 1) Basal (month 0): initial pre-training evaluation; 2) month 4: Evaluation 48h after the last training session. Outcomes: clinical-functional parameters, postural balance, muscular echographic quality, pendulum gait mechanism, and biochemistry. Data Analysis: Data will be described by average values and standard deviation values. The comparisons between and within groups will be performed using a Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) analysis, adopting a level of significance (α) of 0.05. Expected Results: The intervention groups of the different physical therapies and dance are expected to be more effective in all outcomes analyzed, especially improving functional mobility when compared to the control group of unsupervised home exercises. In addition, it is expected that the results of the research will be expandable and the possibility of future developments in the scientific, technological, economic, social and environmental fields and that they will be implemented in the Unified Health System (UHS).