Steps Against the Burden of Parkinson's Disease - RCT Kiel

Launched by UNIVERSITY OF KIEL · Jun 30, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

This clinical trial is studying a special type of treadmill training to help people with Parkinson's disease (PD) who often have trouble walking steadily and are at risk of falling. Even with medication, about 70% of people with PD experience falls, which can lead to injuries and make daily life harder. The trial aims to understand how treadmill exercises, sometimes combined with small challenges that require quick adjustments (called perturbations), can improve walking and balance. Researchers also want to see if these improvements in the clinic carry over to everyday life. After the treadmill sessions, participants will use a phone app that helps continue walking practice at home by setting a rhythm to encourage better walking habits.

People eligible for this trial are adults diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease who have mild to moderate symptoms affecting their walking and balance. They should be able to walk at least one floor without help and not have serious health issues, severe depression, or cognitive problems that would make it hard to participate. During the study, participants will complete 12 treadmill training sessions, with walking tests before and after the training, and again after about two to three months. The study also uses wearable devices and advanced computer analysis to better understand why some people improve more than others. This information may help create more personalized treatments to reduce falls and improve confidence in walking for people with Parkinson’s disease.

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• • Inclusion criteria
• • 1. Diagnosis of PD according to the MDS Criteria
• • 2. Hoehn and Yahr stages I to III;
• • 3. Movement Disorder Society-sponsored version of the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) gait sub-score of 1 or more
• • 4. Signed informed consent to participation
• • Exclusion criteria
• • Any known general health condition likely to interfere with or to pose a contraindication to non-medically supervised physical exercise.
• • Moderate or severe depression (BDI-II ≥18)
• • Cognitive impairment which may preclude the possibility to provide a fully informed consent to enrolment.
• • Linguistic comprehension capacity less than 75% in ordinary conversation
• • Severe psychiatric comorbidity which may interfere with compliance to the study protocol
• • History of or current status of substance dependency
• • Unable to walk less than 1 floor
• • Thoracic pain in the last 4 weeks
• • Currently enrolled in other interventional studies
• • Implanted Deep Brain Stimulation device