Knowledge structure and frontier trends of exercise interventions for Parkinson’s disease: a bibliometric and visualized analysis

Abstract

Background Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder with motor and non-motor manifestations. Exercise is increasingly integrated into the management of people with PD, yet the literature spans diverse intervention modalities, outcome domains, and mechanism-related topics. Objective To characterize publication growth, global collaboration, article types, keyword networks, thematic evolution, outcome domains, and emerging research fronts in exercise intervention research for PD. Methods English-language original articles and reviews indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus from database inception to June 15, 2026, were retrieved. After eligibility screening, cross-database merging, and removal of duplicate and bibliographically incomplete records, 6,542 publications were included. Bibliometric analyses were conducted in R version 4.5.3 using the bibliometrix package and related R packages. The analyses included annual publication and citation trends, article-type distribution, geographic collaboration, keyword co-occurrence, thematic evolution, clinical and functional outcome mapping, citation structure, recent keyword bursts, and exploratory forecasting. Results Publication output increased substantially after 2010, with original articles consistently comprising the majority of the literature and reviews increasing over time. Research output was concentrated in North America and Europe, while contributions from Asia expanded rapidly. Gait, rehabilitation, balance, motor function, and quality of life constituted the persistent thematic core. The gait–rehabilitation–balance family remained the largest thematic family in 2022–2026, accounting for 65.6% of publications, whereas the cognition–mood–quality-of-life family increased to 41.9%. Gait was the most frequently represented outcome, followed by balance, cognition, quality of life, motor function, and falls. Recent growth was observed in cognition, depression and anxiety, sleep, fatigue, evidence synthesis, technology-assisted rehabilitation, and exercise-dose optimization. Highly cited eligible publications primarily addressed exercise effectiveness, Tai Chi, cueing, treadmill and aerobic exercise, balance and resistance training, physical therapy, motor learning, and exercise-related neuroplasticity. Conclusion Exercise research in PD has progressed from basic functional rehabilitation toward a broader framework integrating mobility, non-motor outcomes, technology-assisted delivery, and individualized exercise prescription. Future research should improve the reporting of intervention components and exercise dose, harmonize motor and non-motor outcome measurement, expand long-term and real-world follow-up, and evaluate mechanism- and subgroup-specific responses using rigorous clinical designs.