Detection of passive movement in lower limb joints is impaired in individuals with Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVE: Sensory information is crucial when performing daily activities, and Parkinson's disease may diminish sensitivity to sensory cues. This study aimed to examine the detection threshold of passive motion of knee and ankle joints in individuals with Parkinson's disease. METHODS: Eighteen individuals in the early stages of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (age: 62.7 ±â€¯7.3 years) and 18 healthy matched controls (age: 62.5 ±â€¯7.1 years) first performed a simple reaction time test. Participants were asked to perform ten trials, during which they had to watch a square on a screen and press a button as quickly as possible when the square lit up. Thereafter, the participants were tested for their detection threshold of passive motion of their lower limb joints. Participants were seated in a specially designed chair and their knee or ankle joint was passively moved at a velocity of 0.5º/s. Participants kept their eyes closed and were instructed to press a button as quickly as possible when any joint motion was detected. RESULTS: Individuals with Parkinson's disease needed more time to perform the reaction time test than did the control participants. Individuals with Parkinson's disease also needed larger angular displacement, even when reaction time was used as a covariate measure, to detect any passive motion, in both knee (0.70ºâ€¯±â€¯0.20º) and ankle (1.03ºâ€¯±â€¯0.23º) joints than did the control participants [(0.57ºâ€¯±â€¯0.20º) and (0.84ºâ€¯±â€¯0.27º), respectively]. CONCLUSION: Impaired joint proprioception can be observed in the early stages of Parkinson's disease, which may compromise the use of proprioception cues from lower limbs.

Parkinson's disease delays predictable visual cue processing without affecting complex and unpredictable visual cue processing in postural control.

This study examined the influence of visual information of different complexities and predictability on the body sway of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) during upright stance. Twenty-one individuals at initial stages of PD (62.1 ± 7.2 years), under dopaminergic medication, and 21 controls (62.3 ± 7.1 years) stood inside a moving room, performing 10 trials of 60 s. In the first trial, the room remained motionless. Then, the room oscillated in an anterior-posterior direction. There were three blocks of three trials. In the first block, the room oscillated at 0.2 Hz (periodic simple condition); in the second block, periodic frequencies of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 Hz were combined (periodic complex condition); in the third block, non-periodic frequencies of 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 Hz were combined (non-periodic complex condition). Participants were not informed about the room movement. The displacement of the room and trunk were registered using an OPTOTRAK system. Postural sway was examined using mean sway amplitude, and the relationship between visual information and body sway used coherence, gain, and phase. There was no group difference when the room remained motionless. Upon visual manipulation, the PD group displayed larger sway magnitude in the non-periodic complex condition. Individuals with PD also lagged behind the moving room (lower phase values) compared to controls, only in the periodic simple condition. In the remaining measures, there was no group difference. These results suggest that individuals with PD use complex and unpredictable visual information, similar to controls, during upright stance. However, PD might affect the predictable visual cues processing.

The Effect of Sports on Perceived Quality of Life of People with Visual Disorder / O Efeito do Esporte na Qualidade de Vida Percebida de Pessoas com Deficiência Visual

A prática esportiva melhora a qualidade de vida de pessoas com diferentes características, mas ainda não há informações sobre o impacto do esporte na qualidade de vida de pessoas com deficiência visual. O objetivo deste estudo foi identificar a percepção da qualidade de vida de atletas cegos de futebol de cinco e de goalball e compará-la com a qualidade de vida percebida de pessoas com deficiência visual fisicamente inativas. Trinta e sete homens com deficiência visual, separados em três grupos: 12 atletas de futebol de cinco (idade: M = 27,3 anos, DP = 10,2), 13 atletas de goalball (idade: M = 30,3 anos, DP = 7,0) e 12 pessoas fisicamente inativas (idade: M = 25,3 anos, DP = 2,3), responderam ao questionário WHOQOL-Bref. Atletas com deficiência visual obtiveram maior pontuação na Qualidade de Vida Global e Saúde Geral e em todos os domínios do WHOQOL-Bref do que pessoas fisicamente inativas. Não houve diferença entre a qualidade de vida percebida dos atletas de futebol e de goalball. Portanto, a despeito do tipo de esporte, sua prática está relacionada a uma melhor qualidade de vida de pessoas com deficiência visual. (AU).

Sports practice improves quality of life of people with different characteristics, but there is still no information about the impact of sport on quality of life among people with visual disorder. The aim of this study was to identify the perceived quality of life of blind football and goalball athletes and to compare it to perceived quality of life of physically inactive people with visual disorder. Thirty seven men with visual disorder, separated into three groups: 12 blind football athletes (age: M = 27.3 years, SD = 10.2), 13 goalball athletes (age: M = 30.3 years, SD = 7.0) and 12 physically inactive people (age: M = 25.3 years, SD = 2.3), answered the WHOQOL-Bref questionnaire. Athletes with visual disorder obtained a higher score in the Overall Quality of Live and General Health and in all domains of the WHOQOL-Bref than physically inactive people. There was no difference between the perceived quality of life of football and goalball athletes. Therefore, despite the type of sport, its practice is related to a better quality of life of people with visual disorder. (AU).

Parkinson's disease does not alter automatic visual-motor coupling in postural control.

This study examined the coupling between visual information and body sway in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) compared with healthy controls. Postural control performance was compared between 14 patients with PD (age: 69.6 ±â€¯8.8 years - stages 1-3 of the Hoehn and Yahr scale) and 14 healthy control participants (age: 68.6 ±â€¯3.0 years). Participants stood upright in a moving room that remained motionless or continuously oscillated in the anterior-posterior direction. Ten trials were performed in the following conditions: no movement of the room (1 trial) and with the room moving at frequencies of 0.1, 0.17, and 0.5 Hz (3 trials each frequency). Body sway and moving room displacement were recorded. The results indicated that patients with PD displayed larger body sway magnitude in the stationary room condition. Body sway of patients with PD was induced by visual manipulation in all three visual stimulus frequencies, but body sway of patients with PD was less coherent compared to that of the control participants. However, no difference was observed in the visual-body sway coupling structure. These results indicate that patients with PD can unconsciously couple body sway to visual information in order to control postural sway in a similar manner to healthy participants with intact visual-motor coupling for posture control. However, this coupling is marked by greater variability, indicating that people with PD have a motor system with greater inherent noise leading to a more varied behavior.