Amplitude Manipulation Evokes Upper Limb Freezing during Handwriting in Patients with Parkinson's Disease with Freezing of Gait.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Recent studies show that besides freezing of gait (FOG), many people with Parkinson's disease (PD) also suffer from freezing in the upper limbs (FOUL). Up to now, it is unclear which task constraints provoke and explain upper limb freezing.

Objective

To investigate whether upper limb freezing and other kinematic abnormalities during writing are provoked by (i) gradual changes in amplitude or by (ii) sustained amplitude generation in patients with and without freezing of gait.

Methods

Thirty-four patients with PD, including 17 with and 17 without FOG, performed a writing task on a touch-sensitive writing tablet requiring writing at constant small and large size as well as writing at gradually increasing and decreasing size. Patients of both groups were match

SUBMITTER: Heremans E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4651469 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature