Objective: We investigate whether digital turning measures during daily activities, independently contribute to retrospective fall status in people with PD.
Background: Falls are common in people living with Parkinson’s disease (PD), affecting approximately 60% of people each year, with nearly 40% experiencing more than 1 falls. Difficulties in turning during daily activities are major contributor to fall risk in PD. Although factors such as age and disease severity are known contributors, it is not clear yet whether real-world turning parameters are linked to falls regardless of these factors.
Method: This study included 130 people with idiopathic PD (79 non-fallers, 51 fallers; age: 69±7 years; disease duration: 7±6 years). Participants wore instrumented socks and a waist-mounted, inertial sensor (Opal by APDM) during daily activities (> 8 hours/day) over 7 days. We derived 4 turning measures from these real-world data. Turn angle, turn angle per step, turn duration per step, and number (no.) of steps per turn. We used linear or Poisson (no. of steps only) intensive longitudinal multilevel models adjusted for age, disease severity and time since the last medication to evaluate the independence of turning measures to falls.
Results: Fallers showed significantly smaller turning duration/step (β =-0.03; 95% CI: [-0.05, -0.00]) and turn angle/step (arcsin transformed, β =-0.12; 95% CI: [-0.24, -0.01]) compared to non-fallers, after adjusting of age, PD severity, and time since levodopa. No association was found between faller status and either no. of steps in a turn or turn angle (box cox transformed).
Conclusion: Retrospective fallers compared to non-fallers showed shorter turning measures from daily activities potentially reflecting compensatory turn shortening, independent of age, PD severity, and time since medication intake. These findings suggest that in-home fall prevention efforts may benefit by targeting specific turning behaviors in retrospective fallers in PD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
V. Shah, R. Baudier, C. Silva-Batista, A. Ragothaman, P. Carlson-Kuhta, J. Lapidus, F. Horak, M. Mancini. Real-World Turning Impairments in Fallers with Parkinson’s Disease [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2026; 41 (suppl 1). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/real-world-turning-impairments-in-fallers-with-parkinsons-disease/. Accessed October 1, 2026.« Back to 2026 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/real-world-turning-impairments-in-fallers-with-parkinsons-disease/