External cueing on gait parameters in Parkinson’s Disease

Abstract

Parkinson's disease which is characterized by a paucity of movement, leading to the abnormal gait parameters. The gait pattern is characterized by shuffling as festinant gait. Freezing is an incapacitating motor symptom is also one of the leading causes of gait abnormality leading to falls. Cueing strategy evokes a more goal-directed type of motor control results in improved gait parameters. The purpose of this study to find the effectiveness of external cueing on the gait parameters as cadence, step length and stride length. 30 subjects diagnosed as Parkinson's disease were randomly assigned to three groups, the walking ability was assessed using a 10 meter walk test, and pre-test score was recorded. The external cueing technique was applied for a session of 4 days per week for 4 weeks; each session lasted for about 30 minutes, at the end for 4 weeks, the post-test scores were recorded. External cueing with a combination of audio- visual showed significant improvement in the gait parameters.  The improvement showed in the pre-test to post-test reflected the need for introducing the external cueing in improving gait and attention during a motor task.