Assessment of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation and Auditory Stimulation During Walking in Parkinson Patients

Parkinson's disease affects 1 in 100 people over the age of 60. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive disease of the nervous system that affects movement, produced by the destruction of dopaminergic neurons found in a region of the brain called the basal ganglia Over time, different strategies have been developed to treat and slow the progress of the disease, including pharmacological, rehabilitative and even surgical treatments. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a brain stimulation technique that delivers a low-intensity electrical current to the scalp, usually between 1 and 2 mA over approximately 5 to 30 minutes. The tDCS technique is used with the aim of enhancing a specific brain activity through the neuromodulation of neuronal excitability. In pathologies such as PD, these therapies have been shown to induce immediate after-effects in the brain that translate into reduced gait freezing and improvements in executive function and mobility. In addition, the combined effects of tDCS and physical therapy on the walking ability of PD patients have been studied, where it was shown that anodic tDCS and physiotherapy could be used as a combination treatment to improve patients' gait speed. Another potential therapeutic tool in the treatment of PD consists of the use of sound stimulation with beat frequencies similar to the step. Specifically, this technology is characterized by presenting two tones of different frequencies for each ear in order to influence the mood and mental performance of the listener. This protocol is proposed in order to evaluate the effect of tDCS combined with auditory and binaural stimulus strategies during gait therapy in patients with Parkinson's disease.