Abstract
Cues and Attention in Parkinsonian Gait: Potential Mechanisms and Future Directions.
Highlights
Gait in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is arrhythmic, small in amplitude, and variable [1,2,3]
In individuals with PD who freeze, visual and auditory cues can be used in a transient manner to break freezing events [for review, see Ref. [10]]
We highlight the importance of cognition and, attention, in the efficacy of cueing
Summary
Gait in people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) is arrhythmic, small in amplitude, and variable [1,2,3]. As reduced movement automaticity may contribute to poorer gait function (e.g., smaller, more variable steps) in people with PD [4], external cues may act as pace-makers, taking the place of this additional cognitive control and reducing the amount of attention needed to maintain stable gait This would mean that cued gait would allow more attention to be devoted to other secondary tasks, and one would expect lower dual-task costs [11]. Results showed that gait speed improvements through cueing were only apparent while completing the complex motor task; a detrimental effect was observed during simple walking. The cue prevented gait slowing even while carrying the tray These results suggest that cueing improves dual-task ability, and seem to support the idea that cues reduce attentional demands, freeing up attentional resources to secondary tasks. There is currently a paucity in high-quality research on the effect of cues on these stability metrics that may be more reflective of quality of gait
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