Deficits in tapping accuracy and variability in tremor patients.
Frauke Luft, Sarvi Sharifi, Winfred Mugge and 5 others
PMID 31064378WHAT IT FOUND
People with Parkinson’s disease tapped less accurately at 2 Hz and more variably at 4 Hz than people with essential tremor or healthy controls.
These differences are not enough to use tapping as a clinical diagnostic test.
Key findings
01During the 2 Hz tapping task, the Parkinson’s disease group was less accurate than the essential tremor and healthy control groups in accelerometer data.
02During the 4 Hz tapping task, the Parkinson’s disease group had greater tapping variability than the other two groups.
03Kinetic tremor was detected electrophysiologically in some essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease patients during tapping.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 17 healthy controls, 12 essential tremor patients, 11 Parkinson’s disease patients at 2 Hz and 8 Parkinson’s disease patients at 4 Hz were analysed. Some participants were excluded for technical failure, false task execution, or inability to perform the 4 Hz task, which may leave a selected sample. The paper reports 12 essential tremor subjects included in analysis, but kinetic tremor detection is reported for 13 essential tremor patients, so the sample for that result is unclear. All participants were right-handed and patients stopped medication by an individual scheme, so results may not apply to other medication states or hand dominance. The task used laboratory accelerometers and EMG, and a similar task is not included in the MDS-UPDRS or TETRAS rating scales. No treatment was tested, so it cannot show that tapping or cueing improves symptoms.
Declared interests
The supplied text lists only a funder, Stichting voor de Technische Wetenschappen, and no additional conflict-of-interest declaration.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat this tapping task as a validated diagnostic test. The study was small, used laboratory sensors, and the authors suggest the method might be useful in a future classifier model, not that it already identifies patients.