The effect of eating utensil weight on functional arm movement in people with Parkinson's disease: a controlled clinical trial.
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the effect of eating utensil weight on kinematic performance in people with Parkinson's disease.


METHODS
A counterbalanced repeated-measures design.


METHODS
A motor control laboratory in a university setting.


METHODS
Eighteen adults with Parkinson's disease and 18 age-matched controls. EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS: Each participant performed a food transfer task using spoons of three different weights: lightweight (35 g), control (85 g) and weighted (135 g). Kinematic variables of arm movement were derived and compared between conditions.


METHODS
Kinematic variables of arm movement, including movement time, peak velocity and number of movement units.


RESULTS
Utensil weights significantly affected the movement kinematicsof all participants. Both groups had fewer movement units in the lightweight condition (Parkinson's disease group: 22.18, controls: 19.89) than in the weighted condition (Parkinson's disease group: 22.68, controls: 21.36), suggesting smoother movement in the former condition. In addition, both groups had higher peak velocity in the lightweight than in the weighted condition.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that a lightweight utensil may facilitate smoother and higher-velocity arm movement than a weighted one in people with Parkinson's disease.
Ma
Hui-Ing
HI
Department of Occupational Therapy and Institute of Allied Health Sciences, Taiwan. huingma@mail.ncku.edu.tw
Hwang
Wen-Juh
WJ
Tsai
Pei-Luen
PL
Hsu
Yung-Wen
YW
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001132:Arm / Q000502:physiology; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003297:Cooking and Eating Utensils; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D017770:Lifting; D008875:Middle Aged; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D009068:Movement; D009788:Occupational Therapy / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000534:rehabilitation*