Functional gait assessment in early and advanced Parkinson’s disease

Background Postural instability and balance problems in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) can seriously affect the quality of life and lead to falls with a subsequent increase in the morbidity and mortality. Early identification of gait dysfunction in early stages of PD establishes an effective therapy, prevention of the falls and reducing health care costs. This work aimed to detect gait disorders in patients with PD using the functional gait assessment (FGA) scale and to correlate it with the disease severity in Egyptian PD patients. This is a case–control study in which 40 patients with PD were recruited from the Involuntary Movement Clinic at Alexandria University El-Hadara Hspoital; 20 patients had early stages of PD (Hoehn Yahr stages 1 and 2) and 20 patients had advanced PD (Hoehn Yahr stages 3 and 4). Another 20 subjects were recruited as controls. All recruited subjects underwent gait assessment using FGA scale. Results Gait analysis using FGA showed significant differences ( P