Gait Pattern and Cognitive Performance During Treadmill Walking in Parkinson Disease
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Published on: January 18, 2021
Helena Fernández-Lago1, Olalla Bello, Virginia López-Alonso
1From the Faculty of Sciences of Sport and Physical Education, Department of Physical Education (HF-L, VL-A, JAS, LM, MAF-d-O), and Physical Therapy Department, Faculty of Physical Therapy (OB), University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain.
Objective:
The aim of this study was to explore whether attentional demands are involved in gait improvements in Parkinson disease (PD) patients when they walk on a treadmill.
Design:
Nineteen individuals with idiopathic PD and 19 age-matched healthy controls participated in this study. Participants walked on a treadmill and on overground under single task (walk only) and dual task (walk performing a simultaneous cognitive task) conditions. The dual-task paradigm was used to reveal the attention allocation behavior. Gait pattern and cognitive performance was measured.
Results:
The PD group showed reduced gait variability when walking on a treadmill in comparison with overground. However, this reduction did not deteriorate during the dual task. Moreover, there were no differences in the cognitive performance between treadmill and overground walking.
Conclusions:
This study does not support the proposition attentional resource allocation as a possible mechanism for the treadmill-associated gait improvements observed in PD.
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