Research article summary:

Effects of cognitive challenge on gait variability in patients with Parkinsons disease.

Abstract Extract:
Attention plays an important role in the gait disturbances of patients with Parkinsons disease (PD); however, the effects of 'dual tasking' on fall risk and gait instability have not been well studied. The authors tested the hypothesis that gait ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2003Mar in Journal: J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol (Language : eng)

Full Pubmed Extract

This information was retrieved, real-time, on your behalf from the public area of the Pubmed website:

1. J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol. 2003 Mar;16(1):53-8

Effects of cognitive challenge on gait variability in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Hausdorff JM, Balash J, Giladi N

Movement Disorders Unit, Department of Neurology, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv, Israel. jhausdor@caregroup.harvard.edu

Attention plays an important role in the gait disturbances of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD); however, the effects of "dual tasking" on fall risk and gait instability have not been well studied. The authors tested the hypothesis that gait variability increases when subjects with PD walk while performing a cognitively challenging task (CCT). Subjects with idiopathic PD walked under normal conditions and while performing a CCT. During normal walking, gait variability was significantly (.0001 < P < .05) correlated with fall risk, disease duration, disease severity, motor function, mentation, behavior and mood, and cognitive function. When walking while cognitively challenged, gait variability increased (from 47 +/- 29 msec to 223 +/- 281 msec, P < .002). During dual-task walking, only disease duration remained significantly associated with gait variability. These results highlight the profound effects of attention on gait and indicate that walking while cognitively challenged impairs the ability of patients with PD to maintain a stable walk.

PMID : 12641374 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

This information is obtained from the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright. Type "NLM copyright" into Google for more information.

Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Jeffrey M	Hausdorff	JM
Jackov	Balash	J
Nir	Giladi	N

Affiliation: Movement Disorders Unit, Department of Neurology, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv, Israel. jhausdor@caregroup.harvard.edu

3rd Party provider links

Click the links below to go to related 3rd party information:

MESH categories and related page links

This article was linked to the MESH categories shown on the left below. The links on the right are related Memletics pages.

Links for this article

For links to places where you can get the full text of this article see links. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text.

New! Using similar technology to this site, we have launched find-health-articles.com, targeting over 1 million health research article abstracts.

Here are some articles related to this one (by title keywords):

Effects of depression and Parkinsons disease on cognitive functioning.

Cognitive impairment in Parkinsons disease revealed by event-related potential N270.

Cognitive effects of unilateral posteroventral pallidotomy: a 4-year follow-up study.

Behavioural knowledge, causal beliefs and self-efficacy as predictors of special educators emotional reactions to challenging behaviours.

The attentional demands of preferred and non-preferred gait patterns.

Variability in reaction time performance of younger and older adults.

Are transitions in human gait determined by mechanical, kinetic or energetic factors?

Test-retest reliability of the unified Parkinsons disease rating scale in patients with early Parkinsons disease: results from a multicenter clinical trial.

Response slowing in Parkinsons disease: a psychophysiological analysis of premotor and motor processes.

>>> Get more research article abstracts like these, or browse abstracts.

Keywords in this article:

associated, attention, authors, behavior, cct, challenged, challenging, cognitively, conditions, correlated, disease, disturbances, dual, duration, effects, fall, function, gait, highlight, hypothesis, idiopathic, impairs, important, increased, increases, indicate, instability, maintain, mentation, mood, motor, msec, normal, not, only, parkinson, patients, pd, performing, plays, profound, remained, results, risk, role, severity, stable, studied, subjects, tasking, tested, under, variability, walk, walked, walking, well

Also, see our new free speed reading online course (beta version)