Clarification of Findings

Abstract

To the Editor: In the June 2002 issue of Physical Therapy , Martin et al (“Gait Initiation in Community-Dwelling Adults With Parkinson Disease: Comparison With Older and Younger Adults Without the Disease”) reported on a method that might be useful for detecting subtle signs of motor dysfunction in patients with Parkinson disease. The following 4 inconsistencies in their article, however, appear to be enough to prompt a request for clarification of their findings. In both Table 1 and the text of the article, the authors indicate that 12 people with Parkinson disease participated in the study. When describing the Hoehn and Yahr stages of these people, the authors state, “1 participant was in stage 1.5, 2 participants were in stage 2, 7 participants were in stage 2.5, and 6 participants were in stage 3.” How can these numbers be reconciled, unless a given participant can be in more than one stage simultaneously? In Table 2, the mean values for event B are considerably smaller than the mean values for event A, even though the 2 events happened at almost the same time, as implied in the corresponding values for % gait initiation cycle in Table 3. No units are specified for the values in Table 2, although the reader can guess that the units …