Comparison of Two Rehabilitation Programs in Patients With Mild to Moderate Parkinson's Disease.

Parkinson's disease is a major source of handicap, for which physical treatments are often underutilized with respect to chemical or surgical treatments. Yet, dopaminergic treatments alone prove unable to stop or control the gradual worsening of motor disability after a few years. The training program that this study sets out to evaluate aims to restore balance between agonist extensors and antagonist flexors in Parkinson's disease. There is indeed in Parkinson's disease an imbalance between weak flexors and weaker extensors, with excessive predominance of the flexors. The hypothesis of the study is that a motor strengthening program targeting extensor muscles specifically will improve body posture and restore motor function better than a conventional physical therapy program, in mild to moderate Parkinson's disease. This is a parallel-group, single blind, randomized trial (investigators will be kept unaware of the physical treatment followed by study subjects). The duration of patient participation is 5 months: 2-month intervention and 3-month follow-up following the intervention.