Therapeutic Regime to Ameliorate Quality of Life in Patients with Parkinson's Disease

Aim: As various physiotherapeutic approaches are available to improve either motor or non-motor symptoms, the study was conducted for evaluating the effectiveness of Institution based Rehabilitation protocol to improve quality of life in patients with Parkinson's Disease (IRQOL-PD) to focus on both types of symptoms simultaneously. Method: The non- randomized controlled trial pilot study recruited 42 participants with Parkinson's disease (age between 35-80 years) for 5 weeks of treatment sessions to evaluate the validity, reliability, and effectiveness of the designed protocol. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) and Hoehn and Yahr scale (H&Y scale) were used as outcome measures. Result: The IRQOL-PD with content validity index (0.9), intrarater reliability (Intra-class Co-relation Coefficient = 1 and Cronbach's alpha = 1) and inter-reliability (Pearson correlation coefficient > 0.90 and <0.50 for UPDRS and H&Y respectively) established the statistical and clinical improvement in experimental group related to UPDRS grading (p-value = 0.008). Conclusion: IRQoL - PD protocol was effective to delay the progression of disease without any requirement of special equipment.