Mild Gait Impairment and Its Potential Diagnostic Value in Patients with Early-Stage Parkinson's Disease.

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Methods32 patients with early-stage PD and 30 healthy control subjects (HC) were enrolled. All participants completed the instrumented stand and walk test, and gait data was collected using wearable sensors.ResultsWe observed increased variability of stride length (SL) (P P = 0.004), and swing phase time (SwPT) (P = 0.011) in PD. There were decreased heel strike (HS) (P = 0.001), range of motion of knee (P = 0.036), and hip joints (P P P = 0.007), SL variability (AUC = 0.769, P P = 0.004), and SwPT variability (AUC = 0.688, P = 0.011) had potential diagnostic value. When these five gait parameters were combined, the predictive power was found to increase, with the highest AUC of 0.802 (P ConclusionsPatients with early-stage PD presented increased variability but still symmetrical gait pattern. Some specific gait parameters can be applied to diagnose early-stage PD which may increase diagnosis accuracy. Our findings are helpful to improve patient's quality of life.

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