Developmental Neuromotor Control Laboratory
Effects of Attention on Gait in Adults with Parkinson Disease
Investigators: Genna Mulvey, Beverly Ulrich, Kelvin Chou
People with Parkinson disease (PD) often have differences in symptom severity across the sides of the body which affect their walking patterns and risk of experiencing “freezing” or “motion block”. Examining differences in symptom severity in combination with other factors that influence one side of the body more than the other could lead to ways to minimize the problems in walking patterns associated with differences in symptom severity. This study examines the effects of directed attention with people who have symptoms of PD that are more severe on one side of the body. 25 older adults with PD and 25 older adults without PD will walk across the testing area during each the cue conditions (attention to the left, right, bilateral cues and no cues). Their walking characteristics will be recorded to determine if how direction of attention differences in symptom severity influence walking patterns and stability.
This study is currently underway.
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