Characteristics of Writing in Parkinson’s Disease: Focused on Pen Pressure, Letter Size, and Writing Speed

Abstract

Objectives: Movement disorders in Parkinson's disease (PD) can affect not only letter size but also pen pressure and writing speed. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of writing with focus on pressure, size, and speed in PD. Methods: Sixtythree subjects (38 in a PD group and 25 in a normal adult [NA] group) performed tasks involving drawing along dotted lines and sentence writing using a tablet PC, digital pen, and software that could measure pen pressure, stroke length, and duration. Results: In the task involving drawing along a dotted line, the PD group showed significantly slower writing speed compared with the findings in the NA group. Additionally, in the task involving sentence writing, the PD group showed significantly weaker pen pressure, smaller letter size, and slower writing speed compared with the NA group. Moreover, both groups showed a positive correlation between letter size and writing speed, but only the PD group showed a positive correlation between pen pressure and writing speed. Conclusion: Difficulty in motor control of strength, size, speed, etc. owing to PD is reflected in pen pressure, letter size, and writing speed when performing a writing task. Our results show an importance in measuring multiple factors such as pen pressure and writing speed in the characteristics of writing in PD, which has until now, has been focused only on letter size.

Linguistic, visuospatial, and kinematic writing characteristics in cognitively impaired patients with beta-amyloid deposition

“…Regular words were defined as words with lexical properties and regularity aspects, where the sound and letters correspond to each other in terms of grapheme-phoneme correspondence. Unlike irregular words and non-words, both lexical and phonological routes can be accessed, making it a relatively easy word condition ( Lee et al, 2020 ). Therefore, it can be interpreted that while the performance is maintained until the aMCI stage, a decline in performance is observed from the AD stage owing to the difficulties in accessing not only the lexical route but also the phonological route ( Sung, 2010 ).…”

“…Writing speed was measured by taking into account the length of each stroke (length) and the time taken to write it (duration), which are automatically measured by the software. The speed (mm/ms) was calculated by dividing the length of each stroke (measured in mm from the point the pen touched the tablet notebook screen to the point it was lifted) by the time taken to write it (measured in ms), for each stroke required to write a single character ( Lee et al, 2020 ). The speed of “word dictation” was measured by the speed value obtained by adding the total time required while writing the target word and the total stroke length.…”

Cognitive and language deficits in persons with Parkinson's disease

“…Ovaj tip poremećaja karakterišu abnormalnosti u veličini slova. Pored toga, osobe sa PB pokazuju sniženu brzinu pisanja i slabiji pritisak olovke u poređenju sa zdravim ispitanicima (Lee et al, 2020). Ovakav tip poremećaja pisanja rezultat je motoričkog deficita.…”

Changes in Pen Pressure, Letter Size, and Writing Speed According to Visual Cues in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

“…이러한 선행 연구들은 PD가 우회된 통 로로 유입된 감각 단서를 활용하면서 환자의 주의가 더 집중되어 글자의 크기가 증가하는 것으로 보았다 (Oliveira et al, 1997). (Lee et al, 2020;Smits et al, 2014). 알파벳을 사용하는 국외 PD 환자들을 대상으로 진행된 연구에서는 강직과 서동 등으로 대표되는 PD의 운동 증 상이 쓰기 수행에 영향을 주면서 지면을 누르는 압력이 저하되 고 쓰기 속도가 지연되는 결과로 반영되었으며 (Eckert et al, 2006;Lange et al, 2006;Rosenblum et al, 2013;Smits et al, 2014;Taleb et al, 2017)…”