title: Impairment of complex upper limb motor function in de novo Parkinson's disease.
abstract: The aim of the present study was to evaluate complex upper limb motor function in newly diagnosed, untreated Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Four different unimanual upper limb motor tasks were applied to 13 newly diagnosed, untreated PD patients and 13 age- and sex-matched controls. In a handwriting task, PD patients had significantly reduced sentence length and writing velocity, and decreasing letter height in the course of writing. Furthermore, PD patients performed an aiming task slower with than without target, and showed increased transposition in a pointing task. The results of this study extend previous observations of impaired complex upper limb movements to newly diagnosed, untreated PD patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, ICEN, VU University Medical Center Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1117, 1081 HVAmsterdam, The Netherlands. mm.ponsen@vumc.nl
authors.forename: Mirthe M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Ponsen
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Daffertshofer
authors.forename: Erik Ch
authors.initials: ECh
authors.lastname: Wolters
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Beek
authors.forename: Henk W
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Berendse
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019957:Motor Skills Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000503:physiopathology*