One Year Later: Catching up With Parkinson's Foundation Research Grantee Amy W. Amara, MD, PhD

A: This study evaluates the effect of exercise on cognition and sleep in people with Parkinson’s. Participants are randomly assigned a group: exercise or no exercise. Changes in cognition and sleep (measured by sleep studies) from the beginning to the end of the study are compared between the groups. Our goal is to investigate the impact of exercise on these non-motor symptoms. This is important because there are not many effective medication treatments for these symptoms. In addition, exercise has been shown to improve the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s, so it is possible that it could improve these symptoms as well.

A: We have enrolled 20 participants per group (exercise and no exercise).

A: There can be discrepancies between subjective and objective sleep outcomes. For example, the people in the exercise group are showing significant improvement in the time and efficiency of their sleep, but they don’t necessarily report that they feel like they are sleeping better.

A: Overall, this has been a fun and rewarding study! We are most appreciative of the motivation and passion demonstrated by our participants. As with all clinical studies, recruitment tends to be the biggest challenge. However, we have met our recruitment goals and are pleased with the progress of the study.

A: The Parkinson’s Foundation grant has provided the funds necessary to implement and complete this study. Performing sleep studies, cognitive testing and exercise training is costly. This would not have been possible without Foundation funding.

A: We have been excited to see a significant improvement in sleep efficiency and sleep time for the participants in the exercise group compared to the no exercise group.