Qigong for Managing Parkinson's Disease Symptoms: A Preliminary Review of Meta-Analyses

Qigong, an ancient mind-body practice centred on movement and energy cultivation, offers a potential avenue for improving the quality of life, particularly for individuals with chronic con-ditions. This review focuses on meta-analyses regarding Parkinson's disease (PD), the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, characterized by both motor (tremors, gait and speech impairments) and non-motor (depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances) symptoms. The objective is to assess the potential of Qigong to enhance various aspects of well-being in PD pa-tients, including emotional state, balance, mobility, coordination, and tremor reduction. Fur-thermore, this review seeks to understand Qigong's impact on physical and emotional health, social engagement, and independence, and to evaluate its effectiveness as an adjunct or alterna-tive treatment in early-stage PD. Findings suggest that Qigong holds promise in reducing anxi-ety and depression, fostering relaxation, and promoting overall physical and mental well-being by improving motor and non-motor symptoms of PD patients. Despite promising results, methodological limitations include heterogeneous protocols, re-stricted populations, and scarcity of longitudinal studies, pointing to the need for more rigorous randomized clinical trials, with standardized protocols and diverse populations, to establish Qigong as a validated complementary therapy for PD.