Objectives: Low blood pressure (BP) has been proposed as a risk factor of death in elderly patients. However, this association could be partially accounted for by the deleterious effects of BP-lowering drugs. We analyzed whether these drugs are associated to an increased risk of death in elderly patients taking multiple potential confounders into account.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAssociation between spatial gait parameters and adverse health outcomes in the elderly has not been sufficiently studied. The goal of this study is to evaluate whether the stride length or the step width predict falls, functional loss and mortality. We conducted a prospective cohort study on a probabilistic sample of 431 noninstitutionalized, older-than-64-years subjects living in Spain, who were followed-up for five years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: A new algorithm has been developed, which combines information on gait bradykinesia and dyskinesia provided by a single kinematic sensor located on the waist of Parkinson disease (PD) patients to detect motor fluctuations (On- and Off-periods).
Objective: The goal of this study was to analyze the accuracy of this algorithm under real conditions of use.
Methods: This validation study of a motor-fluctuation detection algorithm was conducted on a sample of 23 patients with advanced PD.
Altered movement control is typically the first noticeable symptom manifested by Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Once under treatment, the effect of the medication is very patent and patients often recover correct movement control over several hours. Nonetheless, as the disease advances, patients present motor complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJMIR Mhealth Uhealth
February 2015
Background: Patients with severe idiopathic Parkinson's disease experience motor fluctuations, which are often difficult to control. Accurate mapping of such motor fluctuations could help improve patients' treatment.
Objective: The objective of the study was to focus on developing and validating an automatic detector of motor fluctuations.