The Auxiliary Qigong Therapy for Parkinson's Disease and Its Effects on EEG and P300

The curative effects of qigong therapy on Parkinson's disease (PD) patients were observed in 52 patients against a control group of 31 patients. The results showed that after an average of 12.4 months of qigong exercises, Webster's marks of the qigong group decreased significantly (P<0.001). Of 52 patients 73% decreased more than 15%, which was considered to be the effective rate; 31% decreased more than 25%, which was also marked effective. In qigong therapy, the curative effects are added gradually over 6 months. Correlation dimension(CD) of EEG and P300 were made use of to investigate the brain function mechanism of qigong therapy. We found relatively lower CD values of the 8-channel EEG in PD patients than normal people, which represented a lower active capability level of the whole brain function and a depressed brain condition. Meanwhile P3 latency was prolongated significantly, indicating affected cognitive functions of PD subjects. After 3 months of qigong exercises, all the above indexes showed improvememts. We suggest that the regulation of the brain function by qigong plays an important role in its curative effects on PD patients.