# Sing for Your Saunter: Using Self-Generated Rhythmic Cues to Enhance Gait in Parkinson's

> **NIH NIH R61** · WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $173,263

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Older adults, and particularly those with Parkinson disease (PD), may experience walking difficulties that
negatively impact their daily function and quality of life. This project will examine the impact of music and
singing on walking performance, with the goal of understanding what types of rhythmic cues are most helpful to
people with Parkinson disease and older adults. Our pilot work suggests that imagined, mental singing while
walking helps people walk faster with greater stability, whereas walking to music also helps people walk faster
but with reduced stability. In Aim 1, we will compare walking while mentally singing to walking while listening to
music, using personalized cues tailored to each person's walking performance. We will also test whether finger
tapping, a rhythmic task similar to walking in many ways, responds similarly while mentally singing and
listening to music. In Aim 2, we will investigate the brain mechanisms underlying the enhancements in
movement performance seen with mental singing or music listening. We will use magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) to measure brain activity during finger tapping with and without various cues to understand which areas
of the brain are more or less responsive to different types of cues. Using the information gained in the first two
aims, we will then conduct an intervention study in Aim 3 to compare and contrast the effects of music-based
vs. singing-based training for people with PD. We will determine which training method results in the greatest
improvements in walking and tapping performance and measure changes in brain activity with training. We will
also ask the participants how acceptable and usable the different training approaches are. This work is among
the first to focus on singing as an intervention to improve walking in PD and is innovative in its use of this
novel, untapped, highly accessible, adaptable, low-cost approach that has the potential to enhance walking,
thereby improving everyday function and quality of life for people with PD.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10180355
- **Project number:** 3R61AT010753-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** GAMMON M. EARHART
- **Activity code:** R61 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $173,263
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2019-09-15 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10180355

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10180355, Sing for Your Saunter: Using Self-Generated Rhythmic Cues to Enhance Gait in Parkinson's (3R61AT010753-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10180355. Licensed CC0.

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