Pilot Study: Parkinson's Conventional Physiotherapy vs Home-based Telerehabilitation

"After the outpatient intensive physical therapy program (common to both study arms), patients in the TrE group will continue with prescribed self-training at home through telerehabilitation, at least 3 times a week for 4 weeks. Each physical exercise session will consist of at least 5 minutes of aerobic warming-up, 35 minutes of specific high-intensity exercises for PD, and 5 minutes of aerobic cool-down.~The TrE arm will be supported by a telerehabilitation device which will be installed and tested at the patients' home immediately after the outpatient intensive program. The device will track any access and exercise duration, so that the physiotherapists will be able to remotely monitor both the actual duration of each session and their weekly frequency. One session per week will be directly and online supervised by a physiotherapist, while the other two will be recorded only."

"After the outpatient intensive physical therapy program (common to both study arms), patients in the HSE group will continue with prescribed self-training at home, at least 3 times a week for 4 weeks. Each physical exercise session will consist of at least 5 minutes of aerobic warming-up, 35 minutes of specific high-intensity exercises for PD, and 5 minutes of aerobic cool-down.~The HSE arm will be given a booklet containing detailed explanations and pictures of the assigned exercises, in order to guide them in the correct execution of the requested movements. Subjects in this group will be asked to fill in a training diary to keep track of the training sessions and their duration. Once a week a physiotherapist will contact patients to discuss possible problems encountered in performing the exercises and to help in solving them."