Standing balance in individuals with Parkinson's disease during single and dual-task conditions

•The centre of pressure displacement of individuals with Parkinson disease and controls was evaluated.•The influence of single- and dual-task conditions on standing balance was assessed.•The centre of pressure displacement was significantly higher for the individuals with Parkinson disease.•Standing balance with eyes closed and in dual-task was similar in both groups.•Standing balance with eyes open had significantly distinct behaviour relative to the other conditions.

This study aimed to examine the differences in standing balance between individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and subjects without PD (control group), under single and dual-task conditions. A cross-sectional study was designed using a non-probabilistic sample of 110 individuals (50 participants with PD and 60 controls) aged 50 years old and over. The individuals with PD were in the early or middle stages of the disease (characterized by Hoehn and Yahr as stages 1-3). The standing balance was assessed by measuring the centre of pressure (CoP) displacement in single-task (eyes-open/eyes-closed) and dual-task (while performing two different verbal fluency tasks).No significant differences were found between the groups regarding sociodemographic variables. In general, the standing balance of the individuals with PD was worse than the controls, as the CoP displacement across tasks was significantly higher for the individuals with PD (p < 0.01), both in anteroposterior and mediolateral directions. Moreover, there were significant differences in the CoP displacement based parameters between the conditions, mainly between the eyes-open condition and the remaining conditions. However, there was no significant interaction found between group and condition, which suggests that changes in the CoP displacement between tasks were not influenced by having PD.In conclusion, this study shows that, although individuals with PD had a worse overall standing balance than individuals without the disease, the impact of performing an additional task on the CoP displacement is similar for both groups.

Graphical abstractEstimated marginal means and standard errors of the centre of pressure (CoP) based parameters in each condition and for the individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and controls.Download high-res image (84KB)Download full-size image