Recovery of dynamic stability during slips unaffected by arm swing in people with Parkinson’s Disease

Authors

Affiliation

Tarique Siragy

University of Ottawa

Allen Hill

University of Ottawa

Julie Nantel

University of Ottawa

Published

April 6, 2021

Abstract

The arm elevation strategy assists in recovering stability during slips in healthy young and elderly individuals. However, in people with Parkinson’s Disease, one of the main motor symptoms affecting the upper limbs is reduced arm swing which intensifies throughout the course of the disease before becoming absent. This holds direct implications for these individuals when encountering slips as the arm elevation strategy is an integral component in the interlimb slip response to restore stability. Arm swing’s effect in recovering from slips in people with Parkinson’s Disease though remains unexamined. Twenty people with Parkinson’s Disease (63.78 ± 8.97 years) walked with restricted and unrestricted arm swing conditions on a dual-belt treadmill where slips were induced on the least and most affected sides. Data were collected on the CAREN Extended System (Motek Medical, Amsterdam, NL). The Margin of Stability, linear and angular trunk velocities, as well as step length, time, and width were calculated. Data were examined during the slipped step and recovery step. The restricted arm swing condition, compared to unrestricted, caused a faster step time during the slipped step. Compared to the most affected leg, the least affected had a wider step width during the slipped step. During the recovery step, the least affected leg had a larger anteroposterior Margin of Stability and longer step time than the most affected. No differences between our arm swing conditions suggests that the normal arm swing in our participants was not more effective at restoring stability after an induced slip compared to when their arm motion was restricted. This may be due to the arm elevation strategy being ineffective in counteracting the slip’s backward destabilization in these individuals. Differences between the legs revealed that our participants were asymmetrically impaired in their slip recovery response.

Keywords

dynamic stability, arm swing, slips, Parkinson’s disease

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CC BY 4.0

Citation

BibTeX citation:

@article{siragy2021,
  author = {Siragy, Tarique and Hill, Allen and Nantel, Julie},
  publisher = {Public Library of Science},
  title = {Recovery of Dynamic Stability During Slips Unaffected by Arm
    Swing in People with {Parkinson’s} {Disease}},
  journal = {PLOS ONE},
  volume = {16},
  number = {4},
  pages = {e0249303},
  date = {2021-04-06},
  url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249303},
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0249303},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {The arm elevation strategy assists in recovering stability
    during slips in healthy young and elderly individuals. However, in
    people with Parkinson’s Disease, one of the main motor symptoms
    affecting the upper limbs is reduced arm swing which intensifies
    throughout the course of the disease before becoming absent. This
    holds direct implications for these individuals when encountering
    slips as the arm elevation strategy is an integral component in the
    interlimb slip response to restore stability. Arm swing’s effect in
    recovering from slips in people with Parkinson’s Disease though
    remains unexamined. Twenty people with Parkinson’s Disease (63.78 ±
    8.97 years) walked with restricted and unrestricted arm swing
    conditions on a dual-belt treadmill where slips were induced on the
    least and most affected sides. Data were collected on the CAREN
    Extended System (Motek Medical, Amsterdam, NL). The Margin of
    Stability, linear and angular trunk velocities, as well as step
    length, time, and width were calculated. Data were examined during
    the slipped step and recovery step. The restricted arm swing
    condition, compared to unrestricted, caused a faster step time
    during the slipped step. Compared to the most affected leg, the
    least affected had a wider step width during the slipped step.
    During the recovery step, the least affected leg had a larger
    anteroposterior Margin of Stability and longer step time than the
    most affected. No differences between our arm swing conditions
    suggests that the normal arm swing in our participants was not more
    effective at restoring stability after an induced slip compared to
    when their arm motion was restricted. This may be due to the arm
    elevation strategy being ineffective in counteracting the slip’s
    backward destabilization in these individuals. Differences between
    the legs revealed that our participants were asymmetrically impaired
    in their slip recovery response.}
}

For attribution, please cite this work as:

Siragy, Tarique, Allen Hill, and Julie Nantel. 2021. “Recovery of Dynamic Stability During Slips Unaffected by Arm Swing in People with Parkinson’s Disease.” PLOS ONE 16 (4): e0249303. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249303.

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