ABSTRACT
Patients with Parkinson’s Disease are usually affected by clinical symptoms associated to a reduced motor performance that frequently compromises their ability to walk independently and safely. While a number of pharmacological solutions help to manage the symptoms of PD, some gait-related problems appear resistant to such treatments and, over time, movement-related disturbances turn out to be the most incapacitating symptoms of the disease. The internal regulation of step length is generally affected, which is reflected as an inability to generate sufficient amplitude of movement, even though the control of cadence, or step rate, is intact. This is in fact the foundation for the use of external rhythmic stimuli, or cueing, as a way to ameliorate the impact of the disease on rhythmic movement-based tasks, as is the case of walking. Human beings are particularly sensitive to the temporal characteristics of sound, therefore, sonification suits well for time-related tasks, as is the case of the body movement.
