Frontiers in Neurology (Sep 2012)
Moving forward with prisms: Sensory-motor adaptation improves gait initiation in Parkinson’s disease.
Abstract
It is postulated that the decreased walking speed; small, shuffling steps; and ‘freezing’ shown by patients with Parkinson’s disease could stem from an inability to tilt the body forward enough to provide sufficient forward propulsion. In two repeated-measures studies we examined whether adaptation to upward-shifting prisms, resulting in a downward after-effect, could improve gait initiation in healthy participants and patients with Parkinson’s disease. Faster forward stepping followed a brief (5 min) exposure period for patients, and a longer (20 min) exposure period for age-matched controls. Backward stepping was unchanged, and adaptation to downward-shifting prisms with control participants showed no effect on forward or backward stepping. These results suggest that adaptation of arm proprioception in the vertical plane may generalise to anterior-posterior postural control, presenting new possibilities for the treatment of gait disturbance in basal ganglia disorders.
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