Neuromotor Modeling of Music Entrainment – Older Patient’s Case Study
摘要
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most common degenerative disease involving movement. It is associated with neuronal death and consequent motor problems, especially those involving gait with the characteristic Freezing of Gait (FoG). In the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, methods related to neurological music therapy seem to be of particular interest especially Rhythmic Auditory Stimulation (RAS). The subject of this article is the analysis of the RAS method of supporting the movement of a patient with Parkinson’s disease at the stage of the disease marked by FoG episodes. The material analyses literature descriptions of the effective use of auditory stimulation in the context of modelling in space the elements of music for personalised stimulation. The case report concerns a patient suffering from PD, without cognitive impairment, residing permanently in a private senior citizen home. The patient was subjected to the RAS method for step lengthening and gait modification. The case study provides preliminary evidence that the use of a metronome with accompaniment can be more effective than a metronome alone when training RAS. The analyzed data show that the use of a more complex accompaniment reduced the average number of steps by 10.4% compared to the results obtained with a metronome accompaniment alone. At the same time, the average time required to cover a certain distance decreased by 7.2%.