Clinical review
Reviewer: Tara Martin, Neurological Physiotherapist
Date of review: June 2019
Comments: This app is for someone who has Parkinson’s or someone working with a person with Parkinson’s who would like very basic advice on improving walking. The app is essentially a series of short educations videos (not really ‘exercises’) that describe techniques for improving walking for people with Parkinson’s. It has been around for a while. It was developed by a reputable organisation and has high quality videos, but the content is somewhat out of date and very generic. Also, as it is mostly just a series of videos (which are downloaded and not streamed), it takes up considerable space (735.4 MB).
Safety concerns: The app is extremely general and does not specify any dose of exercise so risk is minimal. The advice is probably most suited to people with mild/moderate walking problems and only mild freezing. If someone has advanced freezing I would not recommend as their risk of falling is high. There is not enough information on metronome use and what are most appropriate settings. For people with significant freezing, attempting to set up and use a metronome on own may increase freezing and/or falls.
New Zealand relevance: No concerns.
