Khaberni - Scientists have unveiled a simple test capable of predicting the risk of Parkinson's disease, 9 years prior to official diagnosis.
This simple movement test tracks changes in the person's rotation speed during walking, according to "Daily Mail", and was developed by German doctors to overcome the difficulty of early detection of this disease.
The medical research team found that walking rotation problems can help detect Parkinson's disease nearly 9 years before diagnosis.
Difficulty Turning
Turning difficulties are common and closely related to the daily life of Parkinson’s patients. Therefore, it seems intuitive to be able to notice turning difficulties, which underscores the necessity of studying the predictive capabilities of rotation measurements at this stage.
This pushed researchers to analyze movement patterns of 924 participants over the age of fifty, who do not suffer from severe hearing or vision impairments.
Participants completed the test 5 times over 10 years, involving walking down a 20-meter corridor for one minute at their preferred speed, wearing a tracking device on their lower back.
Slow Turning
Researchers found that slow turning at the start of the study was associated with an increased risk of Parkinson's disease diagnosis, showing deviations from the control group about 9 years before diagnosis.
By the end of the study, 23 participants had been diagnosed with the disease, about 5 years after completing the baseline tests.
Using machine learning, which took into account the age, gender, and maximum turning speed of the participants, researchers were successfully able to identify 60% of the patients in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.
The participants’ inclination to turn more slowly as they aged indicated a marker, as those who were later diagnosed with Parkinson's began to turn more slowly, at a wider angle, for about 9 years before official diagnosis.
Experts say this could be a sign of deterioration, either in general movement speed, or in balance and postural stability, both of which are significantly affected by Parkinson's disease.
They added, "A decrease in postural stability might unconsciously prompt patients to turn more slowly and adopt a safer path, using a larger arc."
This means that Parkinson's patients - who are already in a pre-diagnosis stage - develop safer and more stable turning strategies.
