Article

OBJECTIVES: To quantitatively detect the nature of balance impairment in patients
with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) using dynamic posturography. METHODS:
Twenty clinically diagnosed PSP patients (8 women, 12 men; age: 62.1 +/- 7.7
years; duration: 2.6 +/- 1.3 years) and 20 healthy controls were studied. All
subjects were right side dominant. They were evaluated by dynamic posturography
(Biodex, USA). The measurements included (i) balance indices: ability to control
balance in all directions (overall balance index, OBI), front to back
(anterior-posterior index, API) and side-to-side (medio-lateral index, MLI), and
(ii) the limits of stability (LOS) in 8 directions: forward (FW), backward (BW),
right (RT), left (LT), forward-right (FW-RT), forward-left (FW-LT),
backward-right (BW-RT) and backward-left (BW-LT). RESULTS: Compared to controls,
patients showed significantly higher OBI (p<0.001), API (p=0.003) and MLI
(p<0.001), implying impaired balance. The total LOS score was significantly lower
(implying poor stability) in PSP than in controls (18.3 +/- 7.3 vs. 28.4 +/- 8.5,
p<0.001). Patients took significantly longer time to complete LOS test (262.7 +/-
33.0 s vs. 135.4 +/- 20.6 s, p<0.001). Direction-wise analysis showed that PSP
patients had significantly lower LOS scores in FW, BW, RT, FW-RT, BW-RT and BW-LT
directions compared to controls. However the scores in LT and FW-LT did not differ significantly. CONCLUSIONS: PSP patients showed impaired balance indices
and decreased overall LOS compared to controls. Though LOS is affected in PSP,
the scores in the left (non-dominant side) and forward-left (non-dominant forward
diagonal) directions were preserved.
CI - Copyright (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS