The biomechanics and motor control of gait in Parkinson disease

Gait dynamics in Parkinson’s disease: Common and distinct behavior among stride length, gait variability, and fractal-like scaling

“…The interested reader is referred to other papers for additional details about fractal analyses and the application of this type of approach to physiology, pathophysiology, and gait, as well as other reports that describe changes in gait among PD patients and in other populations. 6,36,48,62,73,[77][78][79]91,138,139 The review was intended to underscore the point that the continuous gait changes observed in patients with PD should be viewed on multiple levels. The reduced ͑average͒ stride length seen in patients with PD is one critical aspect.…”

Gait initiation in older adults with postural instability

“…Individuals diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD) and older adults transitioning to frailty are two specific populations of older adults that are highly susceptible to falls, are known to possess significant fear of falling, and demonstrate disturbances in postural stability and gait abnormalities (Kressig et al, 2004, Wolf et al, 2003, Adkin et al, 2003, Morris et al, 2001, Hass et al, 2004. Adults transitioning to frailty can be defined as those persons not meeting the criteria for either frail or vigorous based on Speechley and Tinetti's (Speechley and Tinetti, 1991) classification scheme of ten attributes of frail or vigorous adults.…”

“…Persons with PD are also known to exhibit performance decrements during both straight line walking and gait initiation. Compared to healthy older adults, these patients demonstrate reduced gait speed, stride length, abnormal force regulation, and excessive variability during locomotion and reduced magnitudes of center of pressure (COP) displacements during gait initiation (Morris et al, 2001, Halliday et al, 1998, Gantchev et al, 1996, Martin et al, 2002. Thus, both of these populations have demonstrable problems with postural stability during locomotion and during transitions between states of equilibrium, such as gait initiation.…”

Laserlight visual cueing device for freezing of gait in Parkinson’s disease: a case study of the biomechanics involved

“…Moreover, the ability of visual cueing to focus attention on the stepping process has been pointed out, with greater success observed in studies that did not require unnatural activation of the cue, which could divert attention away from the primary task (Bunting-Perry et aI, 2013). In addition, Morris et al (2001) measured cerebral blood flow and hypothesised that patients could compensate for basal-ganglia dysfunction by using non-affected areas of the brain for motion. Indeed, the pre-motor cortex and supplementary motor area have shown increased activity in PD patients attempting motor execution following exposure to external cues (Jueptner and WeiHer, 1998).…”