Instrumented Timed Up and Go Detects Differences Between Parkinson Disease Subtypes

Aims Tremor Dominant (TD) and Postural Instability/Gait Difficulty (PIGD) are clinical subtypes of Parkinson disease (PD). The purpose of this study was to determine if the instrumented Timed-Up-and-Go (iTUG) and Timed-Up-and-Go Cognitive (iTUGc) differed between TD and PIGD subtypes.Methods Turn velocity, sit to and from stand duration, sit to and from stand lean angles, trunk rotation, turning duration, and total duration were captured during the iTUG and iTUGc. Independent t-tests, Cohen’s d, Mann-Whitney U and effect size r were used.Results PIGD group (n = 19) had significantly slower turning velocity (p = 0.048, d = 0.52) during iTUGc compared to TD group (n = 24). Moderate effect sizes were found between groups for trunk rotation during iTUG (p = 0.271, r = 0.17) and iTUGc (p = 0.092, r = 0.26).Conclusions Assessing turning during the iTUGc may be useful in detecting important movement difficulties in people living with PD classified in the PIGD subtype.