Walking to your right music: a randomized controlled trial on the novel use of treadmill plus music in Parkinson's disease.
Rocco Salvatore Calabrò, Antonino Naro, Serena Filoni and 7 others
PMID 31174570WHAT IT FOUND
Adding rhythmic music to treadmill training improved gait quality, balance, and walking function more than treadmill training alone in people with Parkinson's.
Both groups improved, but the music group showed greater gains in the primary gait assessment.
Key findings
01The primary outcome, Functional Gait Assessment scores, improved significantly more in the music group than in the control group.
02Gait quality index increased more in the music group, driven by better step cadence and stride length, while gait speed improved equally in both groups.
03Brain activity changes in beta-frequency connectivity correlated with the improvement in gait scores, suggesting a neurophysiological mechanism for the benefit.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
There was no follow-up period, so it is unknown if the benefits of RAS training persisted after the eight-week intervention ended. The EEG analysis only looked at alpha and beta frequency bands, potentially missing other relevant neural mechanisms. All patients received a high dose of standard intensive rehabilitation (195 minutes daily), which may have masked or diluted the specific additive effect of the RAS component in some outcomes. The study used a single song ('Angel Elsewhere') for all participants, so the effect of patient preference for the music was not controlled or assessed.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests. The study was conducted at the Robotic Neurorehabilitation Unit of the Fondazione Santa Lucia IRCCS, Rome, Italy. No external commercial funding was explicitly detailed in the provided text, though the institution is a research hospital.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that adding music to any gait training will improve walking speed or balance. In this study, gait speed and Berg Balance Scale scores improved equally in both groups, meaning the music cue specifically enhanced gait quality and functional assessment scores, not all gait parameters.