Comparative Utility of the BESTest, Mini-BESTest, and Brief-BESTest for Predicting Falls in Individuals With Parkinson Disease: A Cohort Study

The newly developed brief-balance evaluation system test (brief-BESTest) may be useful for measuring balance and predicting falls in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD). The purposes of this study were: (1) to describe the balance performance of those with PD using the brief-BESTest, (2) to determine the relationships among the scores derived from the 3 versions of the BESTest (i.e., full BESTest, mini-BESTest, and brief-BESTest), and (3) to compare the accuracy of the brief-BESTest with that of the mini-BESTest and BESTest in identifying recurrent fallers among people with PD. This was a prospective cohort study. Eighty participants with PD completed a baseline balance assessment. All participants reported a fall history during the previous 6 months. Fall history was again collected 6 months (n=51) and 12 months (n=40) later. At baseline, participants had varying levels of balance impairment, and brief-BESTest scores were significantly correlated with mini-BESTest (r=.94, P