Chinese Journal of Rehabilitation Theory and Practice ›› 2025, Vol. 31 ›› Issue (7): 781-789.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1006-9771.2025.07.005

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Effect of exercise on freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis

DU Wenqian, ZHANG Xu, CHEN Jiwei, WANG Xing, ZHU Kun()   

  1. School of Physical Education, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai 200438, China
  • Received:2025-04-18 Revised:2025-05-22 Published:2025-07-25 Online:2025-07-30
  • Contact: ZHU Kun, E-mail: zhukun@sus.edu.cn
  • Supported by:
    National Social Science Fund of China(22BTY076)

Abstract:

Objective To evaluate the effect of exercise on freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease.

Methods After constructing a PICO framework, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about exercise for freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease were systematically retrieved from Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang Data, from the establishment of the databases to March, 2025. The PEDro scale was used to evaluate the quality of literature, Stata 17.0 was used for meta-analysis, and GRADE was used to assess the evidence quality.

Results A total of twelve RCTs involving 463 patients were included, with PEDro scale scores of five to eight. Exercise improved the scores of Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (FOGQ) (SMD = -0.61, 95%CI -0.85~-0.36, P< 0.001) and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Ⅲ (UPDRSⅢ) (SMD = -0.84, 95%CI -1.27~-0.41, P< 0.001). Subgroup analysis revealed that the patients aged 59 to 68 years, the course of disease < six years, and male might get more benefit from exercise; exercise more than 30 minutes a time, more than three times a week, and lasting eight weeks or more might be better; and walking training alone might do less. GRADE was moderate for FOGQ, and low for UPDRSⅢ.

Conclusion Exercise may relieve freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease, especially for male, younger people and people with shorter course of disease. Long term exercise (more than eight weeks), long session duration (more than 30 minutes) and high frequencies (more than three times a week), and mulit-strategy were recommended.

Key words: Parkinson's disease, exercise, freezing of gait, meta-analysis

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