NCT04212897

fNIRS Studies of Music Intervention of Parkinson's Disease

Therapeutic Benefits of Music for Parkinson's Disease: a fNIRS Study Protocol for Controlled Trial

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 150 (estimated)
• Sponsor: The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 40 Years – 80 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) will be used to monitor neuronal activities and connectivity to elucidate the correlation between physiological changes within the brain and the benefits of music therapy for patients afflicted with Parkinson's disease (PD). This study will report on the changes in neural activities as a result of music intervention in PD.

Detailed description

Music therapy improves neuronal activity and connectivity of healthy persons and patients with clinical symptoms of neurological diseases like Parkinson's Disease. Despite the plethora of publications that have reported the positive effects of music interventions, little is known about how music improves neuronal activity and connectivity in afflicted patients. In this study, the investigators will use functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure oxygenated- (HbO2), deoxygenated- hemoglobin (HbR), and total hemoglobin activation in various parts of the cortex. The fNIRS measurement, in conjunction with the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), n-back task, and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), will be performed at baseline, week 4 (during), week 8 (post), and week 12 (retention) of the study. The 8-week long intervention will include a daily 25-minute synchronous finger tapping (SFT) intervention (two sets of ten-minute sessions with a five-minute break in between sets) with a pre-selected well-known rhythmical song. The total anticipated number of participants is 150 and the participants will be split into two groups: an intervention group and a control group. Data collected from the two PD groups will be compared to baseline performances from healthy controls.

Conditions

• Parkinson Disease

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Music Therapy	Participants in the intervention arm will be asked to practice a rhythmic auditory synchronous finger tapping intervention task at home for a total of 25 minutes split between two ten-minute sets with a five-minute break between the sets every day for 8-weeks. During training sessions participants must listen to the instrumental of a pre-selected well-known Chinese melody, "Moonlight over the Lotus Pond" by Phoenix Legend, whose melody duration is 259s. This song was selected for its strong beat and familiarity to the participants. Participants must follow the beats of the melody and tap their right index finger simultaneously to the beats. A visual cue will be displayed to indicate the beats, identical to the one in the assessment. The training session will be conducted once daily after patients have taken their medication. Participants' primary caretaker will be asked to monitor and record completion of sessions.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-01-18
• Primary completion: 2021-12-01
• Completion: 2022-01-01
• First posted: 2019-12-30
• Last updated: 2021-08-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: China