Postural instability in Parkinson's patients

Abstract

Postural instability is a major cause of disability in patients with Parkinson’s disease and therefore increases their dependence on other people and decreases the quality of life in these patients. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of Postural instability and its onset in patients with Parkinson’s disease. We evaluated 250 Parkinson’s patients who referred to the movement disorder Clinic during 2016. All patient information, including gender, age, onset time of symptoms, as well as the time interval between symptoms start to postural instability were recorded. A total of 41 patients (16.4%) had a Postural instability, there was no significant difference between the two groups with and without instability in the distribution of sex and mean age. The mean age for the onset of symptoms in men and women was 54±11/3 and 50/6±12.2 respectively Which was significantly lower in women than in men (P value: 0.026). Also, the mean time between the onset of symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and the onset of motor instability was 5.2±4.9. This time was 8.2±4.5 in men and 11.5±5.7 in women which is significantly shorter in men than women (P value: 0.047). In our society, 16.4% of patients with Parkinson’s disease have a motor instability .this outbreak is independent of the variables of gender and age of the patients. According to our study, although women tend to experience signs of Parkinson’s disease earlier than men, the time interval between the onset of the disease manifestation and the onset of postural instability in males was shorter than that of women.