Music-Based Sling Mobility Training for Parkinson’s Disease: One-Year Follow-up of Case Series

Abstract

Sling mobility training consists of passive and active exercises in slings suspended from the ceiling. We report the effects of music-based sling mobility training for patients with Parkinson’s disease over a one-year follow-up period. Four participants with Parkinson’s disease, aged 64 to 80 years participated in this study. All participants underwent music-based sling mobility training five times per week for one year. The outcome measures included the Part III of the unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale (UPDRS-III), Berg balance scale, 10-meter walk test, 6-minute walk test (6MWT), modified Barthel index (MBI), and Parkinson’s disease questionnaire-39 (PDQ-39). After six months of training, all four participants showed noticeably improved scores for all tests. Furthermore, gains were maintained after one year of training. These findings suggest that music-based sling mobility training might be helpful in enhancing physical performance, activities of daily living, and quality of life in individuals with Parkinson’s disease.

Keywords:

• Parkinson’s disease
• sling exercise
• music
• activities of daily living
• physical performance
• quality of life

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.