Impacts of an Exercise Program and Motivational Telephone Counseling on Health-Related Quality of Life in People With Parkinson's Disease.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to test the effects of group exercise and telephone counseling on physical and psychosocial health in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). DESIGN: This was a quasiexperimental study with a nonequivalent control group. METHODS: This study took place in Seoul, South Korea. Twenty-two and 20 subjects participated in the intervention and comparison groups, respectively. The intervention group performed group exercises twice a week and received motivational telephone counseling every 2 weeks for 12 weeks. FINDINGS: Significant effects of the intervention were found in overall health-related quality of life (HRQOL; p = .012) and in the following HRQOL dimensions: stigma (p = .026), social function (p = .003), cognition (p = .028), and communication (p = .014). No other variables such as activities of daily living, functional fitness, and depression exhibited statistically significant effects. CONCLUSION/CLINICAL RELEVANCE: These results indicate that group exercise with telephone counseling positively affects some aspects of HRQOL in PD patients.

A Meta-Analysis of Nonpharmacological Interventions for People With Parkinson's Disease.

Nonpharmacological interventions are important in providing care for Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. However, there is limited evidence related to their impacts on health-related quality of life (HRQOL). We aimed to examine the effectiveness of nonpharmacological interventions for improving the HRQOL of PD patients. Articles published in peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2015 were searched through electronic searching, computerized author searching, and footnote chasing. A meta-analysis was performed using the RevMan 5.3 program. Overall, effect size for the studies ( n = 18) was -4.17 with 95% confidence interval (CI) from -7.63 to -0.70 ( Z = 2.36, p = .02), indicating positive effects of nonpharmacological interventions on HRQOL. In subgroup analysis regarding the intervention types, the effect size of exercise programs was -5.73 with 95% CI of -11.36 to -0.10 ( Z = 2.00, p = .05). Thus, nonpharmacological interventions, and particularly exercise programs, were effective in improving the HRQOL of PD patients.