Affiliations: Department of Neurology, Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, Xi’an, China
Correspondence:
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Correspondence to: Rui Li, Department of Neurology, Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, No. 256 Youyi
Road, Xi’an 710068, China. Tel.: +86 29 85251331; E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract: Background/Objective:Easily applicable, quantitative assessment of movement is widely needed in various clinical settings, especially in the evaluation of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods:We developed a highly repeatable tablet computer-based finger movement assessment system (FMAS) to record finger movement profile in a visual-motor task both in PD (n = 217) and healthy participants (n = 221). Results:We found age-related declines in finger movement performance among the healthy participants but not in PD patients with the FMAS. Significant differences in movement time (MT) and latency/MT ratio but not in latency were observed in PD patients as compared with healthy subjects (P < 0.000). Meanwhile, we identified the latency/MT ratio as the optimal parameter to differentiate PD from age-matched healthy subjects in an age-independent manner (cut-off 1.08 with corresponding AUC = 0.861). In addition, a significant correlation was found between finger movement parameters and the Hoehn and Yahr scale (H-Y scale), UPDRS III score and the duration of the disease in PD patients (P < 0.01). Conclusion:It was suggested that the tablet computer-based evaluation of finger movement provided an easily applicable quantitative method to assess the conditions of PD patients.
Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, hypokinesia, finger movement profile, visual motor
task, quantitative assessment
