Measuring the maximum pinching force is a good procedure to evaluate bradykinesia in patients with Parkinson's disease
- Resource Type
- Conference
- Authors
- Touge, Tetsuo; Tsutsui, Kunihiko; Kume, Koudai; Ikeda, Kazuyo; Deguchi, Kazushi; Nakamura, Yusaku
- Source
- The 2011 IEEE/ICME International Conference on Complex Medical Engineering Complex Medical Engineering (CME), 2011 IEEE/ICME International Conference on. :192-194 May, 2011
- Subject
- Bioengineering
Communication, Networking and Broadcast Technologies
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Signal Processing and Analysis
Robotics and Control Systems
General Topics for Engineers
Nuclear Engineering
Force
Variable speed drives
Force measurement
- Language
We assessed motor disability and disease severity by measuring the maximum pinching force for 1 minute in patients with Parkinson's disease (n=36) and age-matched normal controls (n=38). Decrement of muscle force during 1 minute did significantly differ between two groups. The incline of force/time curve at the onset of movement significantly correlated with motor scores related to bradykinesia in UPDRS-motor and disease severity in male PD patients, while female PD patients showed that pinching muscle forces at the middle or end point significantly correlated with disease severity and scores related to motor disability. We propose that measuring the maximum pinching force is a good procedure to evaluate motor disability, especially bradykinesia, in PD patients.