The Features of Standing Up Movement from a Chair in Parkinson's Disease Patients

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the features of joint angle and muscle activity of standing up movement from a chair in PD Parkinson's disease patients and healthy individuals, for design of the chairs assisting standing up movement of PD patients. Twelve PD patients and 12 healthy individuals participated in this study. We measured the joint angle and muscle activity electromyogram in the lower limbs, and the ground reaction force during standing up movement from an armchair. In terms of the timing of change of the joint angle and the working joint angle, no significant difference was found between the PD patients and healthy individuals. However, the timing of PD patients in the movement from the start point of the rectus femoris to the start point of the tibialis anterior was significantly shorter than that of the healthy individuals. These results show that PD patients have specific features of muscle activities in standing up movement from a chair.