Objective: The primary objective of this study is to quantitatively evaluate the effect of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in Parkinson’s disease.

Background: Patients with Parkinson’s disease exhibit a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms such as fatigue, pain, constipation and urinary issues, which can ultimately contribute to decreased quality of life. The primary objective of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effect of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) in Parkinson’s disease.

Methods: We present the preliminary results of a double blind sham-controlled cross-over ongoing study, involving 9 patients (2 F, 7 M). The study consists in: T0 baseline/randomization, T1 after 4 weeks of omt/sham treatment, T2 after 4 weeks of rest (no treatment), T3 after 4 weeks of cross-over treatment and T4 after 4 weeks of rest (no treatment). Patient were evaluated at T0, T1,T2, T3 and T4 with the following: the revised MDS-Unified Parkinson’s disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS), the Hoehn and Yahr staging system (H&Y), the Visual analogue scale for pain (VAS), the Fatigue severity scale (FSS), and a questionnaire for urinary incontinence (ICIQ-FS); all patients were also questioned about the number of bowel movements per week. The dopaminergic treatments (LED) remained stable over the study period, but patients were allowed to take 1 extra L-dopa dose per day if needed. The results of both sham and OMT treatments compared to baseline are presented here.

Results: At baseline mean age of patients were 66.89 (± 2.85), 4 patients had H&Y stage of 3 and 5 patients had H&Y stage of 2, mean MDS-UPDRS total score was 60 (±7.30) ,mean LED was 690,44 (±86.52) mean VAS was 5 (±0.7), mean FFS was 42.44 (±3.97); 5 patients had ≤3 bowel movement per week. Compared to baseline OMT improved VAS (p=0.001), constipation (p=0.03) and fatigue (p=0.07); sham did not show any changes compared to baseline. None of the patients needed extra L-dopa doses during the OMT treatment period, while 4 patients needed 1-5 extra L-dopa doses during the sham treatment period.

Conclusions: Although preliminary and partial the data presented suggest that osteopathic manipulation may be an effective physical treatment method in the management of several troublesome symptoms of PD, such as fatigue, pain and constipation, which generally show poor response to traditional pharmacological interventions.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/osteopathic-manipulative-treatment-in-parkinsons-disease-preliminary-results-of-a-double-blind-sham-controlled-cross-over-study/