Arm Swing Reveals Illness
December 13th 2009 -
An early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease will open new paths to slow the disease progression. U.S. researchers found an irregular arm swing as characteristic feature.
Parkinson’s disease differ from healthy people in their movement. Neurologists in the United States pointed to in an experiment that suggests an asymmetric swinging of the arms when walking on the disease. They believe they have found in it a method to detect the disease as early as possible and treat you to. In Germany, more than 200 000 people suffer from Parkinson’s disease. This affects one percent of the over-65s and five percent of people over 85 years.
Stiff limbs and trembling in quiet sitting can be signs of the disease. But at a diagnosis on the basis of these symptoms, doctors reach evidently in the late stage of the disease, with a loss of function of nerve cells in the brain. “At the time of diagnosis is 50 to 80 percent of the critical cells, the dopamine neurons are called, already dead,” said Xuemei Huang of Penn State Hershey College of Medicine. The neurologist says that earlier diagnosis could improve the healing chances.
Irregular movement in the test demonstrated
The medical examiner believed to have occurred in patients an irregular arm swing. To scientifically verify their conjecture, they compared the course of twelve patients with Parkinson’s eight healthy individuals. Huang and her colleagues had asked the Parkinson’s patients before the test, temporarily discontinue their medications, lest they influence the results.
Eight digital cameras recorded the movement sequences of the test subjects had attached to their bodies, the researchers reflecting elements to track the positions of individual body parts independently of one another can. A computer program calculated the magnitude of the arm swing and recorded the movements of both arms at different walking speeds.
Tags: arm swing, asymmetric swinging of the arms, parkinson
