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Freezing Gait in Parkinson's Disease
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1997
Year
Freezing in Parkinson’s disease is an abrupt difficulty initiating or continuing rhythmic movements. The authors surveyed 100 consecutive Parkinson’s disease patients (70 males, 30 females, mean age 61.1 yr) with a questionnaire to assess freezing gait occurrence. Freezing gait occurred in 60 % of patients, typically 4.8 years after disease onset, was more common in females, correlated with disease duration but not age, and was more frequent in akinetic (OR 3.05) than tremor‑predominant (OR 0.29) subtypes.
Freezing is a well-known problem in Parkinson''s disease (PD) and is characterized by an abrupt difficulty in starting or continuing rhythmic and repetitive movements. We utilized a questionnaire in order to assess the occurrence of the freezing gait phenomenon (FG) in a population of 100 consecutive PD patients. Our PD population included 70 males and 30 females, with a mean age of 61.1 ± 9.1 years. Mean duration of PD was 6.5 ± 4.0 years. 92/100 patients were under L-Dopa treatment. The FG phenomenon occurred in 60% of patients. It appeared on average 4.8 years after the beginning of PD; in 16% of the cases it was evident before starting L-Dopa treatment. FG was more frequent among female patients. There was no significant correlation between the occurrence of FG and the age of the patients; on the other hand, a significant correlation was found with the duration of the disease (p < 0.001). FG occurred more frequently in the subgroup of patients with the akinetic form (odds ratio: 3.05); whilst an opposite tendency was evident in the subgroup with the tremor predominant form (odds ratio: 0.29).