Abstract
The gait of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients is shuffling, slow, and hesitant. We investigated peculiar gait relations during the double support phase (DSP) in PD patients and healthy controls. We used 3D motion capture (SIMI) to collect kinematic parameters of the natural gait of 11 PD patients (Hoehn and Yahr 2–3, 5 females, 6 males) tested on medication and the same-sized control sample (5 females, 6 males). The difference between groups was evaluated by the Mann-Whitney U test; for target parameters, the Spearman correlation was computed. Compared to the controls, the Parkinsonian step length index was significantly smaller (0.27 vs. 0.35, p < 0.05), step width index higher (0.12 vs. 0.09, p < 0.05), and the DSP duration was extended (0.165 s vs. 0.13 s, p < 0.05), whereas the single support phase was shortened (0.38 s vs. 0.4 s, p < 0.05). The Parkinsonians were faster during DSP initiation and slower during DSP termination (0.908 m·s−1 vs. 0.785 m·s−1, p < 0.05); the Parkinsonian speed was more constant. The patients showed significantly decreased range of motion (ROM) in the hip, ankle, and shoulder and adopted straighter posture during the gait. Understanding gait concatenations can update physiotherapy approaches to target the roots of movement problems instead of the consequences.
Highlights
The aim of this study is to find out how tightly velocity, single support time (SST):double support time (DST) ratio, and angular parameters in the ankle and shoulder are interrelated and how they communally contribute to the characteristic walking of Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients during the double support phase (DSP), i.e., initial contact (I) and opposite toe-off (T)
It has been shown that the gait of PD patients differs from the gait of healthy controls in many motor aspects [4,15,16,17,18,19,20,22,23]
It is often reported that the PD patients attain lower velocity compared to the healthy controls [20,23,30]
Summary
In addition to the cardinal motor symptoms (rest tremor, muscle rigidity, and bradykinesia), fatigue [1,6], postural instability [1,7], problems in turning [1,8], standing up, or movement initiation [1,9], and/or freezing of gait [1,10]. All these symptoms disrupt the gait cycle [1,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. The ratio of single support time (SST) and double support time (DST) is consistent in a healthy population (4:1) [13,14]; in PD the DST is more lengthy [4,15,16,17,18,19,20]. The PD gait is shuffling and slow, and the stride is shorter [7,18,20,21], it sustains its natural width [18]
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