The following is a summary of “Effectiveness of vestibular rehabilitation on postural balance in Parkinson’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials,” published in the May 2024 issue of Neurology by Amaral et al.
Patients with Parkinson’s disease postural balance problems could be due to impaired processing of vestibular signals by the basal ganglia.
Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate existing research on whether vestibular rehabilitation can improve postural balance in patients with Parkinson’s.
They conducted a systematic review using PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and PEDro. Two reviewers independently selected studies, with a third reviewer resolving disagreements. The included studies had no publication date or language restrictions and were last updated in July 2023.
The results showed that of the 485 studies, only 3 met the criteria for the systematic review, involving 130 participants. The Berg Balance Scale was used for postural balance evaluation in all studies. Meta-analysis indicated significant results favoring vestibular rehabilitation (MD = 5.35; 95% CI = 2.39, 8.31; P< 0.001), regardless of Parkinson’s disease stage. Despite suggesting functional gain, caution was exercised due to the limited inclusion of 3 randomized controlled trials. The risk of bias assessed with RoB-2 was rated “some concern” in all studies. The quality of evidence based on the GRADE system was deemed very low after pooling studies.
Investigators found evidence suggesting vestibular rehabilitation may help patients with patients with Parkinson’s disease with balance, but more high-quality studies are needed to confirm this benefit.
Source: bmcneurol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12883-024-03649-5
