The University of Kent, UK, led a randomized, controlled study to test if gentle, controlled stimulation of the ear canal can help reduce symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The results show that that twice-daily stimulation for two months was associated with a significant reduction in both motor and non-motor features of Parkinson’s disease.
Not only did the participants show improvements in decision-making, attention, memory, mood, and sleep, but they also reported greater movement and mobility. By the end of the study, the participants said they found it easier to perform every day activities by themselves with most of the therapeutic gains being greatest five weeks after the end of the treatment. This suggests that the treatment may have long-lasting effects. The study has been published in the journal Parkinsonism & Related Disorders.
Professor David Wilkinson at Kent’s School of Psychology led the research. It was conducted on 46 individuals with Parkinson’s disease. To stimulate the ear canals, they used a portable headset that was produced exclusively for clinical investigations by Scion Neurostim, a US-based device company. The stimulation therapy was performed at home using the easy-to-use device. Participants continued to take their regular dopamine replacement therapy throughout the experiment.
Professor Wilkinson said:
This study raises the intriguing possibility that some aspects of Parkinson’s disease may be better managed if traditional drug-therapies are combined with gentle, non-invasive stimulation of the balance organs.
Dr. Beckie Port, Research Manager at Parkinson’s UK, said:
The results from this small-scale study are very exciting. While more research is needed to better understand how delivering this kind of non-invasive stimulation to the nerve in the ear works, it holds a lot of promise to relieve troublesome symptoms that many with Parkinson’s experience.
Professor Ray Chaudhuri, Director of the National Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence at King’s College Hospital, said:
The results are very encouraging. Achieving both widespread efficacy and durable gains in motor and specifically non-motor aspects of Parkinson’s disease would be quite novel, and improvements in non-motor symptoms would be especially notable. Those symptoms are often untreated or poorly treated and have a particularly detrimental impact on the quality of life, and their treatment is a key unmet need. I am intrigued and want to see where this device technology might go.
This study is a continuation of previous research conducted by Professor Wilkinson’s group. Altogether, the team found that gentle stimulation of the inner ear can improve neurological symptoms associated with stroke and traumatic brain injury, as well as Parkinson’s disease.
According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, nearly 60,000 people being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease every year in America alone. If the trend continues as it is going, there will be nearly one million Americans living with the condition by 2020. If this device is proven to really work and they can make it commercially available, it could help countless people.
