Superficial brain stimulation to overcome freezing of gait in Parkinson disease

Gait impairments are common and debilitating in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). One particularly debilitating type of gait impairment is freezing of gait (FOG), which is characterized by sudden episodes during which patients feel as if their feet "are being glued to the floor."1 Presumed mechanisms underlying gait impairment in PD involve dysfunction of the basal ganglia, which enable automatic performance of overlearned movements such as gait. In PD, basal ganglia dysfunction results in reduced automaticity and a reduced ability to internally generate movements (i.e., patients experience more difficulty producing movements in the absence of an external cue).2 However, many patients with PD spontaneously develop strategies to compensate for their reduced automaticity and inability to internally generate movements.3 Understanding such compensatory mechanisms is important, e.g., to shape focused rehabilitation techniques and to unravel the mechanisms underlying gait impairments in PD. Here, we present a patient who spontaneously presented several compensatory strategies to overcome FOG, including one very unusual "trick."

Source: Neurology - April 24, 2017 Category: Neurology Authors: Nonnekes, J., Janssen, S., Bloem, B. R. Tags: Parkinson's disease/Parkinsonism, Motor Control, Basal ganglia CLINICAL/SCIENTIFIC NOTES Source Type: research