All’s well that ends well: an early-phase study testing lower end-session exercise intensity to promote physical activity in patients with Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Decreasing the intensity of exercise at the end of a session has been associated with greater post-exercise pleasure and enjoyment. Here, we investigated whether this manipulation can enhance affective attitudes toward physical activity (PA) and promote PA in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Seven patients (72.9 ± 5.6 years, 3 women) were included in an eight-week within-subject study consisting of weekly exercise sessions. The first four weeks were used as a control condition. In the last four weeks, 9 minutes of lower-intensity exercise were added at the end of each session (experimental condition). Results of the linear mixed-effects models showed that the addition of lower-intensity exercise improved the explicit affective attitudes toward PA (b = 1.00, 95%CI = 0.36 to 1.64, P = 0.022). We found no evidence of an effect on implicit affective attitudes (P = 0.564), accelerometer-based PA (P = 0.417) and self-reported measures of PA (P = 0.122). Although not significant, self-reported PA per day was 36 minutes longer in the experimental than in the control condition. The findings of this early-phase study may suggest that reducing the intensity of an exercise at the end of the exercise sessions enhanced explicit affective attitudes toward PA in patients with PD. Yet, future well-powered and randomized studies are needed to provide more robust evidence.