Article

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.
CI - (c) The Author(s) 2016.

Langue : ANGLAIS