Brain exercises may help thinking in Parkinson's disease, but the studies are few.

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   480 people with Parkinson's disease took part in 14 trials, published from 2006 to 2014. Their average age was 66, and only two trials included people with memory or thinking problems.

2. 02

   What they did

   Eight trials gave the same brain exercises to everyone, and three set them up for each person. Three used repeated magnetic pulses. Trials ranged from 8 minutes to 45 hours in total.

3. 03

   What happened

   The same exercises helped planning and control, attention and memory more than other groups did. Set-up exercises did not clearly help those skills, and magnetic pulses did not help planning and control. The summary says set-up exercises may help too, but results were unclear, and small studies may be missing.

What the review found

1. HelpedOther outcomes

   In four studies, the same brain exercises helped planning and control skills more than other groups did.

   • Action: Train attention and memory with exercisestested

   Pooled analysis of 4 studies · vs groups that did not get the exercises · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; mixes trials with other kinds of study

2. HelpedFocus

   In six studies, the same exercises helped attention and keeping things in mind more than other groups did.

   • Action: Train attention and memory with exercisestested

   Pooled analysis of 6 studies · vs groups that did not get the exercises · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; mixes trials with other kinds of study

3. HelpedOther outcomes

   In three studies, the same brain exercises helped memory more than other groups did.

   • Action: Train attention and memory with exercisestested

   Pooled analysis of 3 studies · vs groups that did not get the exercises · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; mixes trials with other kinds of study

4. No differenceOther outcomes

   In three studies, exercises set up for each person did not help planning and control skills more than other groups.

   • Action: Train attention and memory with exercisestested

   Pooled analysis of 3 studies · vs groups that did not get the exercises · ⚠ mixes trials with other kinds of study

Source