Summary of the Article
This journal article is a literature review research study that analyzes range of studies in the field of treatment of Parkinson disease (PD) with Whole Body Vibration (WBV) method; thus, the purpose of this journal article is to review evidence of various study research findings in order to establish whether WBV is an effective and reliable method in treating persons with PD by improving their sensorimotor (Lau, Teo, Yu, Chung and Pang, 2011). For this study, the objective was to establish whether WBV is a viable option for treating PD cases by systematically assessing the findings of relevant research studies based on certain criteria.
To do this the authors of this study reviewed the research findings of 6 peer-reviewed articles that were selected from an initial database of 6,533 total articles. It is these final 6 articles that the authors systematically analyze based on a range of factors for purposes of establishing the efficacy of WBV in treating PD cases by assessing the impact that WBV therapy has in improving sensorimotor. In examining the evidence of the research findings for each of the article, this research study assessed each research article in terms of study design, methodology, sample size and the overall strength of the research study. Based on this criterion, this study review by Lau et al (2011) concluded that there was not enough evidence to support the efficacy of WBV in the treatment of PD cases and that further research studies were necessary.
One of the major reasons that this research article cited as the main reason for the inability to conclude the efficacy of the WBV treatment method was the weaknesses and methodological differences of the 6 research studies used.
Critique of the article
This study is not a research paper per se but a review of 6 research studies that are relevant to the subject of study that the authors are investigating, as such this study does not utilize any standard form of research methodology which we can use to assess its strength; this I would say is a weakness by itself. However, the major weakness with this study is its choice of study that it uses for it reviews, this is because the entire research study is based on 6 studies which according to my opinion are not enough to establish the efficacy of WBV in treating PD cases; it is thus no wonder that this research study concludes that the overall study findings are inconclusive. The other weakness with this research study is lack of framework for which these research studies can be based on; because this 6 research studies cannot be comparable based on the same variables it is impossible to develop a standard framework on which to assess all the variables of interest since the studies are different. All the same, this research study has been well designed.
In general this article is very informative as far as treatment of PD cases using WBV is concerned; the literature review and research findings that are reviewed in this study are very relevant in understanding the treatment methods for PD cases using WBV and recent studies on the same, as such I will recommend it to be used in the nursing profession.
References
Lau, R., Teo, T., Yu, F., Chung, R. & Pang, M. (2011). Effects of Whole Body Vibration on Sensorimotor Performance in People with Parkinson Disease; A systematic review. Phys Ther, 91: 198-209.