Effects of Exercise on Dystonia Pathophysiology
Start Date
10/13/2022
Completion Date
12/31/2027
Summary
The purpose of this research study is to investigate how the brain and motor behavior changes in individuals with dystonia in response to exercise training.
Detailed Description
Dystonia is a debilitating movement disorder. It involves involuntary muscle contractions with abnormal and repetitive movements, postures, or both. The current treatments for dystonia comprise of oral medications, botulinum toxin injections, and deep brain stimulation surgery. These treatments, despite optimal management, fail to improve symptoms in more than a third of patients and the improvements are often unpredictable. We will investigate the brain adaptation effects for progressive resistance exercise-focused cervical and shoulder training (PERFECT) in patients with focal cervical dystonia with functional MRI (fMRI) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) techniques for understanding the pathophysiology of dystonia and treatment related changes. The investigators propose to enroll patients with predominantly focal cervical dystonia and compare PERFECT plus standard-of-care (SOC) therapy (n = 27) with a control group of SOC therapy (n = 27). Participants in the PERFECT + SOC group will perform physical therapist-guided exercises twice a week for 6 months and participants in the SOC group will continue receiving standard pharmacological therapies at stable doses and they will not exercise.
Eligibility Criteria
Age Range: 30 years to 85 years
Interventions
Progressive resistance exercise
Standard of care
Conditions
Locations
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida 32611
United States