Musical Feedback: a new strategy in gait training for Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Abstract

Rhythmic auditory stimulation (RAS) for gait training in Parkinson’s disease has been applied successfully over the last three decades. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of an extended concept of RAS, which is not limited to musical stimulation, but also includes musical feedback. In our study the comparison between RAS, musical feedback (MF), and no musical stimulation (NM) is conducted on a sample of 20 idiopathic Parkinsonian patients in a randomized cross-over design. Each patient has the task to walk for six minutes for each condition, focusing on stride length. The patient is instructed to make long steps and is connected with a software that is able to record stride length and cadence. In the RAS condition the patient listens to music with clearly accentuated rhythm. In the MF condition, as the stride length increases, the same musical piece used in the RAS condition goes through five different levels, ranging from a simple beat to a complete orchestral sound. The software records the percentage in which every music level is covered, with higher levels corresponding to longer strides. Our preliminary results confirm the expectation that MF facilitates stride length increase in a faster and more stable way than RAS does.