Gait & posture
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Quantitative analysis of gait and balance response to deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease.
Gait and balance disturbances in Parkinson's disease (PD) can be debilitating and may lead to increased fall risk. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a treatment option once therapeutic benefits from medication are limited due to motor fluctuations and dyskinesia. Optimizing DBS parameters for gait and balance can be significantly more challenging than for other PD motor symptoms. ⋯ Correlation coefficients between at least one kinematic feature and corresponding UPDRS scores were greater than 0.75 for six of the seven items. Kinematic features improved (p<0.05) from DBS-OFF to DBS-ON for three UPDRS items. Despite achieving high correlations with the UPDRS, evaluating individual kinematic features may help address inter-rater reliability issues and rater bias associated with focusing on different aspects of a motor task.