The effect of external sensory cues on parkinson's gait after deep brain stimulation surgery. Ahmad Fuzail1,*, Lecturer, Goel Vinay2, Assistant Professor, Dhawan Leena3, Maurya Mona4 1M.P. Th. (Neuro), Hamdard University, New Delhi. 2DM, Dept. of Neurology, AIIMS, New Delhi. 3M.S. PT., Temple University, USA. Lecturer, Hamdard University, New Delhi. 4M.P. Th (Neuro), Head Neurophysiotherapy Unit, Dept. of Nurology, AIIMS, New Delhi. *Reprint requests: Fuzail Ahmad, M.P. Th. (Neuro), Lecturer, Hamdard University, New Delhi. Email: fuzail_ad@yahoo.co.in, Phone: 91-11-26059688 Ext-5740/42, Mobile: 91-9873745609, Fax: 91-11-26059663.
Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the immediate effects of the visual cues on the selected gait parameters in PD patients after DBS. Thirty volunteer subjects (25 men and 5 women) with a mean age of 55.4 + 7.1 years, ranging from 39 to 68 years, all exhibiting, moderate to severe gait dysfunction. According to a standard protocol, all the subjects were made to walk five lengths of 12 meter walkway, under three testing conditions. Assessment of gait performance in this experiment included five dependent variables; gait speed, cadence, step length, stride length and step width. One way MANOVA demonstrated a significant difference in gait performance among the three conditions. Further analysis was performed to determine which dependent variable was significantly different among the conditions by using a follow-up univariate analysis of variance. Among the three conditions, there was a significant difference for gait speed (F = 70, p<0.005), gait cadence (F= 15.3, p<0.001), step length (F=273, p<0.001), stride length (F= 138.56, p=.001), but stride width was found to be not significant (F=0.64, p<0.53) all possible pair wise post-hoc comparisons were performed on gait speed, cadence, step length, and stride length, to compare conditions. These results indicate that the use of visual cues improves the temporal and distance parameters of gait in Parkinson's patients with deep brain stimulation. Top Keywords Parkinson's disease, sensory cues, deep brain stimulation, physical therapy. Top |