Influence of visual cues on gait in Parkinson's disease during treadmill walking at multiple velocities.

Abstract Objective To evaluate the interaction of different treadmill-induced gait velocities and visual cues on the gait performance in Parkinson's disease (PD). Background External cuing has been reported to facilitate hypokinetic gait patterns in PD. Methods 19 PD-patients and 17 controls volunteered for the study. Gait analyses were conducted using dynamic pressure sensors integrated in a treadmill at a given velocity of 1, 2, 3 or 4 km/h. For each velocity, measurements were performed under three conditions. The first condition was without visual cuing, the remaining two consisted of visual cuing e.g. white stripes put on the treadmill belt 25 or 50 cm apart. Results Visual cuing lower…