BACKGROUND: Recent studies show that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and freezing of gait (FOG) experience motor problems outside their gait freezing episodes. Because handwriting is also a sequential movement, it may be affected in PD patients with FOG relative to those without. OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed to assess the quality of writing in PD patients with and without FOG in comparison to healthy controls (CTs) during various writing tasks. METHODS: Handwriting was assessed by the writing of cursive loops on a touch-sensitive writing tablet and by means of the Systematic Screening of Handwriting Difficulties (SOS) test in 30 PD patients with and without freezing and 15 healthy age-matched CTs. The tablet tests were performed at 2 different sizes, either continuously or alternatingly, as indicated by visual target lines. RESULTS: Patients with freezing showed decreased writing amplitudes and increased variability compared with CTs and patients without freezing on the writing tablet tests. Writing problems were present during both tests but were more pronounced during writing at alternating compared with writing at continuous size. Patients with freezing also had a higher total score on the SOS test than patients without freezing and CTs, reflecting more extensive handwriting problems, particularly with writing fluency. CONCLUSIONS: Writing is more severely affected in PD patients with FOG than in those without FOG. These results indicate that deficient movement sequencing and adaptation is a generic problem in patients with FOG.
BACKGROUND: Recent studies show that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and freezing of gait (FOG) experience motor problems outside their gait freezing episodes. Because handwriting is also a sequential movement, it may be affected in PDpatients with FOG relative to those without. OBJECTIVE: The current study aimed to assess the quality of writing in PDpatients with and without FOG in comparison to healthy controls (CTs) during various writing tasks. METHODS: Handwriting was assessed by the writing of cursive loops on a touch-sensitive writing tablet and by means of the Systematic Screening of Handwriting Difficulties (SOS) test in 30 PDpatients with and without freezing and 15 healthy age-matched CTs. The tablet tests were performed at 2 different sizes, either continuously or alternatingly, as indicated by visual target lines. RESULTS:Patients with freezing showed decreased writing amplitudes and increased variability compared with CTs and patients without freezing on the writing tablet tests. Writing problems were present during both tests but were more pronounced during writing at alternating compared with writing at continuous size. Patients with freezing also had a higher total score on the SOS test than patients without freezing and CTs, reflecting more extensive handwriting problems, particularly with writing fluency. CONCLUSIONS: Writing is more severely affected in PDpatients with FOG than in those without FOG. These results indicate that deficient movement sequencing and adaptation is a generic problem in patients with FOG.
Authors: Serene S Paul; Leland E Dibble; Genevieve N Olivier; Christopher Walter; Kevin Duff; Sydney Y Schaefer Journal: Behav Brain Res Date: 2019-09-14 Impact factor: 3.332
Authors: Evelien Nackaerts; Elke Heremans; Bouwien C M Smits-Engelsman; Sanne Broeder; Wim Vandenberghe; Bruno Bergmans; Alice Nieuwboer Journal: PLoS One Date: 2017-03-02 Impact factor: 3.240
Authors: J Sebastian Marquez; S M Shafiul Hasan; Masudur R Siddiquee; Corneliu C Luca; Virendra R Mishra; Zoltan Mari; Ou Bai Journal: Front Neurol Date: 2020-11-10 Impact factor: 4.003