Gait analysis comparing Parkinson's disease with healthy elderly subjects.

UNLABELLED There is a lack of studies comparing the kinematics data of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD) patients with healthy elder (HE) subjects, and when there is such research, it is not correlated to clinical measures. OBJECTIVE To compare the spatio-temporal and kinematic parameters of Parkinsonian gait with the HE subjects group and measure the relation between these parameters and clinical instruments. METHOD Twelve patients with IPD and fifteen HE subjects were recruited and evaluated for clinical instruments and gait analysis. RESULTS There were statistically significant differences between HE group and the IPD group, in stride velocity, in stride length (SL), and in the hip joint kinematic data: on initial contact, on maximum extension during terminal contact and on maximum flexion during mid-swing. Regarding the clinical instruments there were significant correlated with in stride velocity and SL. CONCLUSION Clinical instruments used did not present proper psychometric parameters to measure the IPD patient's gait, while the 3D system characterized it better.