Moving Yourself in Space and Time: MYSTIC

Summary

This study is being done to answer the question: Do people with Parkinson's benefit from a new stepping therapy, and how do people with Parkinson's best learn new steps and rhythms set to music? Researchers will also compare individuals with Parkinson's Disease with people with Mild Cognitive Impairment, and with people with neither of these conditions. The purpose of this study is to identify principles of human-music interactions to establish underlying guiding theories for application to music-based rehabilitation for older populations with neurodegenerative disease, leading to more refined and targeted music-based rhythmic movement therapies.

Interventions

• Complex Rhythmic Movement Sequences (CRMS) Sessions · OTHER

  Researchers will establish complex rhythmic movement sequences (CRMS) as an experimental paradigm to identify spatial and temporal components and learning time courses of complex rhythmic movement. Participants will dance with new partners every 15-20 minutes, a widely practiced method of the dance community to enhance learning. The class format is: 1. practicing previously learned steps 2. 25-minute warmup, partnering/rhythmic exercises 3. learning new steps 4. combining old and new steps 5. cool down Participants dance both leading and following roles, learn how to interpret motor goals through touch, and perform activities to foster understanding of the temporal relationship of movement to music.

Published eligibility criteria

Verbatim from the registry. Only the site can decide how these apply to a specific patient.

Inclusion Criteria for Young adults and adults with normal cognition (NC):

* 18 to 35 Years old
* Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score of 26 to 30

Inclusion Criteria for Older Adults:

* 50 to 79 with or without MCI
* 50 to 79 years old with Parkinson's disease (PD), who do NOT have impaired decision-making capacity
* Participants who achieve less than 150 minutes moderate or 75 minutes vigorous aerobic activity per week (as per the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)),

Exclusion Criteria for all groups:

* Acute medical illness requiring hospitalization;
* Uncontrolled congestive heart failure;
* History of stroke in the past three years;
* Inability to perform study procedures;
* Medical or physical conditions that would preclude participation (e.g., severe arthritis or mobility problems, uncontrolled hypertension or diabetes, renal failure, history of angina with activity);
* On medications that could adversely affect cognition, e.g., antipsychotics, opioids, stimulants, chemotherapy, and neurologic prescriptions to treat Multiple Sclerosis. When applicable, enrollment will be delayed until dosages are stable on e.g., Aricept, Namenda, anticholinesterase inhibitors, for at least 3 months
* Psychotic disorders
* Confounding neurologic conditions \[e.g., active central nervous system (CNS) opportunistic infections, seizure disorders, head injury with loss of consciousness \>30 minutes, intracranial neoplasms, stroke with neurological or neuropsychiatric sequelae\]
* Substance Use Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder within six months of evaluation.
* Inability to provide informed consent

Sites (1)

• Emory University, Executive Park, Wesley Woods, Atlanta, Georgia · RECRUITING