McKay J Lucas, Hackney Madeleine E, Factor Stewart A, Ting Lena H
The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University and Georgia Tech Atlanta Georgia USA.
Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics Emory University School of Medicine Atlanta Georgia USA.
Mov Disord Clin Pract. 2019 Jun 6;6(6):446-451. doi: 10.1002/mdc3.12784. eCollection 2019 Jul.
The role of muscle rigidity as an etiological factor of falls in Parkinson's disease (PD) is poorly understood. Our objective was to determine whether lower leg rigidity was differentially associated with frequent falls in PD compared to upper limb, neck, and total rigidity measures.
We examined the associations between Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-Part III (motor) rigidity subscores and the history of monthly or more frequent falls in 216 individuals with PD (age, 66 ± 10 years; 36% female; disease duration, 7 ± 5 years) with logistic regression.
A total of 35 individuals were frequent fallers. Significant associations were identified between lower limb rigidity and frequent falls ( = 0.01) after controlling for age, sex, PD duration, total Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale- Part III score, and presence of freezing of gait. No significant associations ( ≥ 0.14) were identified for total, arm, or neck rigidity.
Lower limb rigidity is related to frequent falls in people with PD. Further investigation may be warranted into how parkinsonian rigidity could cause falls.
肌肉僵硬作为帕金森病（PD）跌倒的一个病因因素，其作用尚未得到充分理解。我们的目的是确定与上肢、颈部和整体僵硬程度相比，小腿僵硬是否与PD患者频繁跌倒存在差异关联。
我们采用逻辑回归分析，研究了216例PD患者（年龄66±10岁；36%为女性；病程7±5年）的统一帕金森病评定量表第三部分（运动）僵硬子评分与每月或更频繁跌倒史之间的关联。
共有35例患者为频繁跌倒者。在控制了年龄、性别、PD病程、统一帕金森病评定量表第三部分总分以及步态冻结的存在后，发现下肢僵硬与频繁跌倒之间存在显著关联（P=0.01）。对于整体、手臂或颈部僵硬，未发现显著关联（P≥0.14）。
下肢僵硬与PD患者频繁跌倒有关。对于帕金森病僵硬如何导致跌倒，可能需要进一步研究。
