Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

A disruptive sign of advancing Parkinson's disease (PD) is the onset of freezing. Freezing is the temporary inability to perform voluntary movements such as walking and is characterised by halting progress as walking begins, at reversals, turns, or when passing through passages, like doorways. There is limited understanding of the small changes in gait that occur before and during freezing episodes. This research aims to answer three questions. First, can freezing-like deviations in walking patterns be identified in PwPD who completed walking tasks that included transitions (e.g., 90° and 180° turns, and a doorway transition)? Second, are the PwPD who displayed these deviations the same people who reported freezing and greater severity of freezing on the New Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (NFOG-Q)? It is hypothesized that PwPD exhibit deviations from their own normal walking patterns and from the walking patterns of controls during movement transitions, and that the PwPD who display these deviations will report higher FOG severity in their daily lives. Finally, we also have data from the same participants performing a reaching task requiring the same transitions and we will determine whether the PwPD who display freezing-of-gait also show freezing-like behaviours while reaching. This research has the potential to redefine freezing as a problem fundamentally associated with executing movement transitions that can affect multiple motor systems. One benefit may be that we see Parkinson's Disease through a clearer lens where previously disparate signs and symptoms are seen to have a common origin.