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Investigating Therapies for Freezing of Gait

NCT03065127 · Status: UNKNOWN · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 17

Last updated 2017-04-25

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Freezing of gait (FOG) is arguably one of the most debilitating motor symptoms experienced by individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). FOG may be caused by an overload of cognitive, limbic, and sensorimotor system activity in the basal ganglia. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate cognitive, limbic, and sensorimotor therapies in individuals with FOG. Participants in this study will undergo all three types of treatments in a randomized counterbalanced order. Each treatment will occur in 1 hour sessions, twice weekly for a period of 4 weeks.

Conditions

  • Parkinson Disease
  • Gait Disorders, Neurologic

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Training

Training the cognitive domain may be accomplished by training various cognitive and executive functions with guided practice focusing on specific skills (e.g. visuospatial processing, executive function, memory, language, and attention). Cognitive training has been demonstrated to be efficacious in several studies in individuals with PD. Given the potential cognitive contribution to FOG episodes, this type of therapy may alleviate FOG by potentially improving upon planning, set-shifting, and/or response inhibition.

BEHAVIORAL

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

CBT has been demonstrated to be effective in the remediation of anxiety in individuals with PD. This may be beneficial to individuals experiencing FOG, given the evidence that anxiety may provoke FOG. During periods of elevated anxiety (e.g. walking in a threatening environment), freezers will be able to more efficiently process this limbic load resulting in greater resources available for movement control.

BEHAVIORAL

Proprioceptive Training

Currently, studies investigating proprioceptive training as a treatment in PD are limited. However, this type of training has potential by improving proprioceptive processing. It would be expected that due to this training, when sensorimotor processing is challenged during locomotion (e.g. by removing visual feedback and preventing compensation of proprioception deficits), freezers would experience less decrements to gait due to an enhanced ability to process sensorimotor demands.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Sun Life Financial Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Rebecca Chow, BSc · Sun Life Financial Movement Disorders Research and Rehabilitation Centre

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2017-02-24
Primary Completion
2017-08-31
Completion
2017-08-31

Countries

  • Canada

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT03065127 on ClinicalTrials.gov