Problemas neurológicos

The Relationship between Strength and Balance in Individuals with Parkinsons Disease

Abstract

Morgan O’Connor, Samuel Moulton, Brenna M Lobb, and Amie L Peterson

Objective: To test the hypothesis that strength will have a correlation with balance in individuals with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and will not be associated with balance in our healthy controls. Design: Cross-sectional Setting: Tertiary care university hospital and Veteran’s Hospital. Participants: 27 individuals with a diagnosis of PD and 25 age and gender matched controls Intervention: Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures: Balance as measured by sensory organization test scores separated into trials 1-3 (static balance) and 4-6 (dynamic balance) and strength as measured by work and power in knee flexion and extension. Results: Strength and balance were not found to have a significant association in the control group. However, in the PD group dynamic balance was found to have significant associations with all measures of strength: work of knee extension, work of knee flexion, power of knee extension and power of knee flexion. Conclusions: Knee flexion and extension strength have a significant correlation with dynamic, but not static, balance in individuals with PD and no significant correlation was found between strength and balance in the control group.