Music and Metronomes Differentially Impact Motor Timing in People with and without Parkinson’s Disease: Effects of Slow,Medium, and Fast Tempi on Entrainment and Synchronization Performances in Finger Tapping, Toe Tapping, and Stepping on the Spot Tasks

Well, the title is a mouthful, isn’t it?

Basically, this study looked at the different effects of external Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS) on folks with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) compared with folks without PD, using different tempi and different ways to observe the ability to synchronize with the beat.

Although this blog has noted a previous study which indicated that an internal RAS (e.g., singing a song) was superior to external RAS to immprove one’s gait, I have received feedback from several caretakers that their person with PD can not sing or carry a tune, but has been able to improve gait and reduce freezing with external RAS. Thus, this study should be of interest.

Bottom line: This study showed that music was superior to a metronome stimulus in “entrainment” of the motor systems involved after the cue was removed. (look up entrainment in biomusicology on Wikipedia for a full description of what it means). In other words, once a body gets synchronized to the musical RAS, they can continue to walk at the same pace as if the music were still playing.

Of course, there is more to it than this brief report. For that, I’ve provided the link to the full article above.

###