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Scientists from Canada showed that listening to music during gait training could help patients with Parkinson’s Disease.

Gait disturbances is one of the main characteristics of Parkinson’s Disease (PD). It has been associated with increased risk of falling, diminished mobility, and reduced quality of life. In addition to that, patients with PD have difficulties when it comes to dual tasking; walking and performing a secondary task like talking. This is known as dual task interference and is thought to be associated with the incidents of falling amongst people with PD.

One rehabilitation strategy of PD that seems to be effective includes the use of rhythmic auditory during gait training sessions. de Bruin and colleagues attempted to investigate whether a similar effect would be observed if the cue was a musical piece or “walking song”. They did this by implementing a 13-week home based music and walking program on 11 volunteers with PD. The music used were commercially available songs, unaltered, familiar and enjoyable to individual patients. The tempo of the selected song was matched to each patient’s walking cadence. The control group attended a gait training programme that wasn’t acco

The group of PD patients that underwent a 13 week music programme showed improved gait performance compared to the control group. In particular, marginal improvements were reported in gait velocity, cadence, and stride time. The same patterns of improvements were observed in the dual task condition. Moreover, listening to music during training did not lead to increased falls. This suggests that this practice is safe.

The mechanism that led to these improvements is not fully understood. One possible explanation proposed that music may have enhanced gait performance through increasing the patients’ affective arousal. This is possible as the arousal potential of the music was intentionally high in this study; the pieces were selected based on familiarity and enjoyment. Another explanation suggests that training and listening to music could be seen as a dual tasking condition. Listening to music can be seen as a cognitive demanding task and practising two tasks at the same time (walking and listening to music) allows the improvement of task-coordination skills.

The results of this study indicate that the use of cadence-matched, salient music to accompany walking is a feasible and enjoyable intervention for use amongst patients with mild to moderate PD.

de Bruin N, Doan JB, Turnbull G, Suchowersky O, Bonfield S, Hu B, & Brown LA (2010). Walking with music is a safe and viable tool for gait training in Parkinson’s disease: the effect of a 13-week feasibility study on single and dual task walking. Parkinson’s disease, 2010 PMID: 20976086