Combined calcium and vitamin D supplementation proved superior to calcium alone in reducing the number of falls and improving muscle function in community-dwelling older individuals.

Objectives To assess the evidence for the existence and prevalence of sleep attacks in patients taking dopamine agonists for Parkinson's disease, the type of drugs implicated, and strategies for prevention and treatment.

No abstract

Further prospective community-based well designed studies on accident risk in PD patients are needed to provide evidence based driving recommendations.

Finger tapping, the most widely used test for evaluating motor dysfunction in Parkinson's disease (PD), was found to react sensitively to disease specific factors like disease severity and changes in medication. A possible interference caused by disease unrelated demographic factors--age, gender, education and dexterity--however has not yet been studied systematically. Various components of tapping performance of 187 healthy subjects and 200 PD patients were assessed by means of the BRAIN TEST, a digitalized test battery. The effects of demographic factors--above all education and age--were found to be significant. These influences generally affect different aspects of movement to a different extent, with speed and akinesia being affected more severely than dysmetria and arrhythmokinesis. Our study suggests that whenever precise assement of upper limb motor performance is needed, specific corrections for these demographic factors in both healthy controls and PD patients are necessary.