Group tele-rehabilitation improves quality of life among subjects with Parkinson's disease: A two arm non-parallel non-randomized clinical trial.

INTRODUCTION: Tele-rehabilitation has lately emerged as a promising medium for increasing patient adherence with significant positive results. One of the most prevalent neurological diseases affecting movement is Parkinson's disease (PD), which causes a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms among patients. Consequentially, the study was designed to compare the efficacy of group tele-rehabilitation with individual tele-rehabilitation in improving quality of life (QoL) among subjects with PD. METHOD: A two-group pretest-posttest, non-randomized clinical study recruited 68 subjects and classified them into two groups, i.e., Group A (group therapy, n = 36) and Group B (individual therapy, n = 32). Groups A and B received a supervised protocol consisting of a 40-min session on alternate days/week for twelve weeks via the WhatsApp Messenger application through group and individual therapy, respectively. The Parkinson's disease questionnaire (PDQ-39), mental and physical components of the Short Form Survey (SF-12) were used as primary outcome variables, while the Satisfaction questionnaire was used as a secondary outcome variable. RESULT: The p-values related to within-group analyses were <0.05 except SF-12 PCS >0.05 in Group A and <0.05 in Group B. While the p-values related to between-group analyses were <0.05 except for pre-scores of SF-12 (MCS and PCS). The effect sizes for PDQ-39, SF-12 (MCS), and SF-12 (PCS) were -2.37, 3.36, and 0.66 in Group A and 1.95, 2.69, and 2.03 in Group B, respectively. CONCLUSION: The study concluded that group tele-rehabilitation is more effective in improving QoL among subjects with PD as compared to individual tele-rehabilitation. Clinical trial Registration NoCTRI/2022/04/041818.

Investigating the role of nisoldipine in foot-shock-induced post-traumatic stress disorder in mice.

This study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of nisoldipine, an L-type voltage-sensitive calcium channel blocker, to ameliorate anxiety and fear response in a mouse model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Acute trauma was induced in Swiss albino mice in a 2-day electric foot-shock paradigm consisting of 15 intermittent foot-shocks of 0.8 mA intensity, 10-s duration and 10-s intershock interval, during 5 min, followed by 3 weekly situational reminders, that is, once per week in the same context on three successive weeks. PTSD-induced behavioral changes were assessed using actophotometer, open-field, social interaction test, and freezing behavior. Biochemically, the serum corticosterone levels were estimated. Electric foot-shock and situational reminders produced behavioral alterations and decreased corticosterone levels, assessed on the 21st day following the traumatic event. Administration of sertraline (Ser 15 mg/kg), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and nisoldipine (20 and 40 mg/kg), significantly attenuated the foot-shock-trauma-induced behavioral changes along with normalization of the corticosterone levels. It may be concluded that nisoldipine produces beneficial effects in re-establishing behavioral alterations, which may be due to normalization of reduced corticosterone levels in PTSD in mice.