#028 – Ankle Proprioception and Functional Mobility in People With Parkinson’s Disease

The Relationship Between Ankle Proprioception and Functional Mobility in People With Parkinson’s Disease

The hypothesis is that impaired ankle proprioception would be significantly correlated with low functional mobility in people with Parkinson’s disease.

Weight-bearing ankle proprioception test– the Active Movement Extent Discrimination Assessment (AMEDA).
Timed-up-and-go test (TUG).
30 s sit-to-stand test (30s-STS) test.
10-meter walking test (10 MWT).

43 Participant with mild to moderate Parkinson’s disease.

Ankle proprioception was not significantly related to any functional mobility measure or the New Freezing of Gait Questionnaire.
Moderate correlations were observed between ankle proprioception and step length from the 10 MWT test and between ankle proprioception and step cadence from the 10 MWT test.
Ankle proprioception had a significant correlation with the stage of modified Hoehn and Yahr.

The lack of relationship between ankle proprioceptive acuity and functional mobility in PD
- Suggests that proprioceptive acuity is not the main limiting factor in mobility in the current group of PD patients.
  - This might be due to other aspects of sensory input is compensating for ankle proprioception.
Decreased ankle proprioceptive acuity was associated with decreased step length and increased step cadence.
- Suggesting that the shuffling gait observed in PD may be related to impaired ankle proprioception,
  - Which has important clinical implications for gait retraining in people with PD.
Ankle proprioception was significantly and negatively correlated with the stage of modified Hoehn and Yahr
- Therefore, it might be used as an objective biomarker to monitor the progression of PD.