2015 Study 

• 20 older adults with PD (on medication), ages 59-76 

• Verbal instruction and brief (5-10 min) practice of three different sets of instructions during quiet standing and step initiation-- AT-based (“Lighten Up”), effort-based (“Pull Up”), and relaxation-based (“Relax”), followed by performance of tasks in each condition.

• “Lighten Up” instructions had beneficial effects on head carriage, sway amplitude, step initiation, and axial tone. 

• Even brief exposure to AT principles can affect performance of well-learned activities. 

• “High-level” cognitive intervention (changing the way you think about your body) can affect “low-level” functions such as posture and movement. 

• Changes seen in the PD people may be clinically important, as postural sway is associated with fall risk, gait initiation is associated with freezing of gait, and axial rigidity is associated with turning difficulty. 

• These results might help explain why AT training was previously found to decrease disability associated with PD.