The Impact Of Patient-specific Adaptive Dynamic Cycling On Heart Rate, Effort And Rating Of Perceived Exertion In People With Parkinson's Disease

High-cadence dynamic cycling is an effective therapy for improving motor symptoms in individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Our lab developed a patient-specific adaptive dynamic cycling (PSADC) paradigm that manipulates entropy of cadence to optimize exercise prescriptions for individuals at various stages of disease progression. PURPOSE: To evaluate the changes in heart rate (HR), effort (power output above zero during the exercise session) and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) over 12 sessions of high-cadence dynamic cycling in individuals with PD. METHODS: Twenty-two individuals with idiopathic PD (were randomized into two groups: PSADC (n = 12) or active control (n = 10). All individuals completed 12 sessions (3 sessions per week for 4 weeks) of cycling on a custom motorized stationary cycle. Individuals in the PSADC group followed an adaptive exercise prescription in which resistance level was optimized, using entropy of cadence and cycling effort, on a weekly basis. Individuals in the active control group remained at a constant resistance level. Heart rate, effort and RPE were analyzed with paired sample t-tests and independent sample t-tests to determine differences between different sessions and groups. Pearson's correlation was used to test associations among HR, effort and RPE. RESULTS: The average HR of the active control group (Mean = 78.31, SD = 7.39) is significantly lower (p = 0.009) than PSADC group (Mean = 86.95, SD = 6.55). There was a significant decrease in HR from Session 1 to Session 12 for the active control group (p = 0.019), while the PSADC group showed no significant change (p = 0.192). The average effort in control group (Mean = 54.49, SD = 38.97) is significant lower (p = 0.018) than PSADC group (Mean = 89.87, SD = 25.1). There were no significant correlations observed between HR, Effort, and RPE in either group. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed that heart rate was higher but stable over 12 sessions of PSADC compared to constant resistance cycling in individuals with PD. However, there was no significant correlation between heart rate, effort and RPE. Additional studies are being done to compare heart rate to changes in motor symptoms. Supported by: Davis Phinney Foundation