The efficacy of cognitive-cycling dual-task training in patients with early-stage Parkinson's disease: A pilot study.

Background Recent studies have suggested that cognitive-motor dual-task (DT) training might improve gait performance, locomotion automaticity, balance, and cognition in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Objective We aimed to investigate the efficacy of cognitive-cycling DT training in patients with early-stage PD. Methods Participants were scheduled to perform cognitive tasks simultaneously with the cycling training twice per week for eight weeks for a total of 16 sessions during their on-states. Clinical assessments were conducted using the unified Parkinson's disease rating scale (UPDRS), modified Hoehn and Yahr stage, Timed Up and Go (TUG) test, gait and cognitive performances under dual-task paradigm, the new freezing of gait questionnaire, Schwab and England Activities of Daily Living scale, 39-item Parkinson's disease questionnaire, and cognitive performance. Results Thirteen eligible patients were enrolled in the study. The mean age was 60.64±5.32 years, and the mean disease duration was 7.02±3.23 years. Twelve PD patients completed 16 serial cognitive-cycling sessions for two months. After 16 sessions of training (T2), the UPDRS III scores improved significantly in both the off- and on-states, and TUG were significantly less than those at pretraining (T0). During both the ST and the DT situations, gait performance and spatial memory cognitive performance significantly improved from T0 to T2. Conclusion The present study demonstrated that cognitive-cycling DT training improves the motor functions, gait and cognitive performances of PD patients.