Standard osteopathic manipulative treatment acutely improves gait performance in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Patients with Parkinson's disease exhibit a variety of motor deficits which can ultimately result in complete disability. The primary objective of this study was to quantitatively evaluate the effect of osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) on the gait of patients with Parkinson's disease. Ten patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and a group of eight age-matched normal control subjects were subjected to an analysis of gait before and after a single session of an OMT protocol.