Objective impairment of tandem gait in Parkinson's disease patients increases with disease severity.

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION:Tandem gait abnormalities have been reported to increase with advancing age, play a role in fall-prediction in Parkinson's disease, and distinguish it from atypical parkinsonism. Tandem gait has been scored based on the number of side steps off a straight line in these studies. Objective measurement of spatiotemporal tandem gait parameters in Parkinson's disease has not been previously reported. METHODS:Subjects (74 Parkinson's disease and 28 controls) were enrolled after IRB approval. Those with more than 1 fall/day or a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score <10 were excluded. Subjects tandem walked ("heel to toe") on a 20 foot pressure-sensor mat. Data was collected and analyzed using PKMAS software (Protokinetics). RESULTS:Compared to controls, on tandem gait, Parkinson's sub

SUBMITTER: Sharma R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6902868 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature