Griffith GJ; Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.
Thomsen B; Xie Z; Zhang A; Davis Z; McKee KE; Corcos DM

Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 58(3):484-492, 2026 Mar 01.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative nervous system
condition causing motor and nonmotor symptoms. Endurance training is
commonly prescribed in people with PD for possible slowing of disease
progression. Since people with PD exhibit lower cardiorespiratory fitness,
it is important to understand peak aerobic capacity (VO 2peak ) in people
with PD. VO 2peak prediction equations may be used when cardiopulmonary
exercise testing (CPET) is unavailable; however, exercise-based
PD-specific prediction equations are lacking. The purpose of the study was
to develop a PD-specific VO 2peak prediction equation and to compare this
equation to published VO 2peak prediction equations.

METHODS: This study included N = 127 never-medicated individuals with PD,
aged 40-80 yr, Hoehn and Yahr stages 1-2, within 5 yr of diagnosis, and
exercising <=3 d/wk, who completed a treadmill CPET. Linear regression
analyses were performed to generate the VO 2peak equation from a
validation subsample, which was applied to a cross-validation subsample.
The equation was compared with two published equations for healthy adults.

RESULTS: The PD-specific VO 2peak equation was: VO 2peak (mL/kg/min) =
12.466 + 0.149 x (treadmill speed [m/min]) + 85.7 x (treadmill grade [%,
as a decimal]) – 2.383 x (sex [0 = male, 1 = female]) – 0.135 x (age
[years]). There was no difference between estimated and measured VO 2peak
in the cross-validation subsample. Our equation successfully predicted VO
2peak in early PD, whereas VO 2peak was over- and underestimated in people
with PD by the American College of Sports Medicine and Foster equations,
respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians can estimate VO 2peak in individuals with PD to
identify those for whom endurance exercise training should be a major
health priority, develop an exercise prescription, and assess changes in
VO 2peak over time.