Postural sway in patients with mild to moderate Parkinson's disease.

Clinical assessment of postural instability in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) is done with the retropulsive pull test, but since this test does not assess the underlying causes of postural instability, there is a need for additional assessment tools. The aim of this study was to identify postural sway parameters for use in a multifactorial approach to quantify postural instability. Nineteen adults diagnosed with idiopathic PD, 14 healthy age-matched controls (EH), and 10 healthy young adults (YH) completed the study. Postural parameters were extracted during quiet standing in eyes open (EO) and eyes closed (EC) conditions. Removing visual feedback affected the groups in a similar way. Significant differences between the PD and the two control groups were found in sway path length, area, and ranges in the anterior-posterior (AP) and medial-lateral (ML) directions and the Hurst exponents. PD significantly increased AP sway path length compared with YH and ML sway path length compared with EH. The Hurst exponents in PD were significantly different than in EH. The results suggest that the ML direction is a successful discriminator between PD and age-matched controls and that the interaction between ML and AP directions should be considered in the method used to quantify postural instability.