Abstract
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the brain causing both motor and non-motor symptoms. Motor symptoms include slowness, tremors, rigidity, and other related issues, while non-motor symptoms often involve anxiety, and most significantly, depression. Medications are the primary treatment to manage these symptoms, however, some symptoms and/or individuals might be resistant to medication or lack efficacy, which requires the need for alternative treatments. Non-invasive brain stimulation, specifically transcranial static magnetic stimulation (tSMS) and acute intermittent hypoxia (AIH) are two potential alternative treatments being studied for their potential effectiveness in helping PD symptoms. AIH uses periods of reduced oxygen to increase brain activity while tSMS uses magnetic currents to inhibit brain activity and, which collectively may provide reduction in symptoms through neuroprotection in Parkinson’s disease. This study aims to determine the effectiveness of tSMS and AIH in reducing symptoms for those with PD. This was done by conducting a randomized clinical trial over 12 sessions (n=4). Both motor and non-motor symptoms were assessed through questionnaires developed by the Movement Disorders Society (MDS-UPDRS-III and MDS-NMS), respectively, while depression was evaluated using the 15 item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15). Although no significant findings (p<0.05) were found for MDS-UPDRS-III, MDS-NMS or GDS-15, a downward trend in overall symptoms was observed, suggesting that tSMS and AIH could provide improvement in symptoms. Future studies should include a larger sample size to provide clearer and more conclusive results to determine if tSMS and/or AIH can provide neuroprotection in PD.