Fear of falls as a determinant behavioral factor to reduce functional mobility in Parkinson’s disease

Abstract

Objective: To verify the repercussion of the fear of falling on the functional mobility and the actual risk of falls of people with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Method: This was a cross-sectional study in which individuals of both sexes with clinical diagnosis of idiopathic PD, at stages 1 to 3 of the original Hoehn and Yahr scale and enrolled in the Pró-Parkinson Program of the Hospital das Clinics of the Federal University of Pernambuco were included. Patients with other neurological diseases, untreated systemic diseases, musculoskeletal disorders, cognitive impairment measured by the Mini Mental State Examination and with moderate to severe depression measured by the Beck depression inventory were excluded. Normality of the sample was tested with the Shapiro- Wilk test and the difference between both groups was assessed with the T-test for independent samples, considering P < 0.05. Results: The sample was consisted of 18 patients, 11 patients (61%) reported fear of falling with or without a history of falls in the previous year. Significant increase in TUG time was observed in the group with fear of falling in relation to the group without fear of
falling (P = 0.012). Conclusion: The fear of falling seems to be a behavioral factor that has negative repercussions on the functional mobility and the actual risk of falls of patients with Parkinson’s disease, therefore health providers must consider this factor when designing treatment protocols for these patients.