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. 2022 Apr;37(4):864-869.
doi: 10.1002/mds.28917. Epub 2022 Jan 8.

Where Do Parkinson's Disease Patients Look While Walking?

Nora Vanegas-Arroyave  1 , Denise F Chen  2 , Peter M Lauro  3 , Gina Norato  4 , Codrin Lungu  5 , Mark Hallett  6
Affiliations

Where Do Parkinson's Disease Patients Look While Walking?

Nora Vanegas-Arroyave et al. Mov Disord. 2022 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is associated with gait and visuomotor abnormalities, but it is not clear where PD patients look during ambulation.

Objective: We sought to characterize the visual areas of interest explored by PD patients, with and without freezing of gait (FOG), compared to healthy volunteers (HVs).

Methods: Using an eye-tracking device, we compared visual fixation patterns in 17 HVs and 18 PD patients, with and without FOG, during an ambulatory and a nonambulatory, computer-based task.

Results: During ambulation, PD patients with FOG fixated more on proximal areas of the ground and less on the target destination. PD patients without FOG displayed a fixation pattern more similar to that of HVs. Similar patterns were observed during the nonambulatory, computer-based task.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest increased dependence on visual feedback from nearby areas in the environment in PD patients with FOG, even in the absence of motor demands. © 2022 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Keywords: Parkinson's disease; freezing of gait; visual sampling.

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Conflict of interest statement

Financial Disclosure/Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interests concerning the research related to the manuscript.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Comparison of average fixation percentages among subject groups for (A) Ground and (B) Target destination - areas of interest (AOIs). AOI fixation percentage is defined as the fixation time on a specific AOI divided by total fixation time during the trajectory. The PDf group fixated significantly more on the Ground AOI (B) compared to PD subjects without freezing (p<0.001) and controls (PDf 68.0±11.3, PD 29.0±25.5, HV 19.8±26.5, p<0.001). In contrast, the PDf group fixated less on the Target Destination AOI (B) compared to PD subjects without freezing (PDf 29.7±9.8, PD 65.7±23.2, HV 68.8±23.6, p<0.001) and controls (p=0.001). AOIs = areas of interest, HV = healthy volunteers, PD = Parkinson’s disease without freezing of gait, PDf = Parkinson’s disease with freezing of gait. *Significant difference between groups (p<0.05)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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