Senior fitness test in assessing the effectiveness of physical rehabilitation in the context of parkinson's disease patients' quality of life

Abstract

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The main problems associated with losses at the motor level are: tremor, rigidity, postural instability and bradykinesia. Many publications related to rehabilitation in PD refers to methods which are used to rehabilitate patients, but there is lack of significant amount of publications concerning tools to examine the effectiveness of these programs. The purpose of the work was to determine the suitability of Senior Fitness Test (SFT) in the assessment of the effectiveness of physical rehabilitation of people with PD. The research was conducted in a group of 52 people (age 64.52 +/- 7.56 years) with idiopathic PD disease (duration of the disease was 6.69 +/- 4.93 years) in II stage in Hoehn & Yahr scale. Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) was used to determine the clinical status of patients. Parkinson's Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (PDQL) was applied to determine the quality of life. The patients were divided into a group of participants and non-participants in the process of physical rehabilitation. Obtained results in the tests showed statistically significant differences between the groups in all the tests. The biggest absolute difference was observed in the Back Scratch test (308,33%). In order to achieve the main goal of the work, the correlation coefficients between the quality of life and the results of the SFT were calculated. The obtained results show that correlation between all the tests in both groups is at least moderate. The highest correlation was recorded in the "2-minute walk" test in both groups. It was found that there is a relationship between SFT results and the quality of life of people with PD. SFT is a helpful tool in assessing the effectiveness of physical rehabilitation of people with PD.