ArticleActa neurologica Belgica2024
The effects of laser cane cues on the freezing of gait of Parkinson's disease patients: can increasing the laser light beam width play a role?
Article in Acta neurologica Belgica, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Integrating Eye Tracking and Inertial Sensing for Enhanced Freezing of Gait Detection in Parkinson's Disease.The European journal of neuroscience · 2026Article
- An Interdisciplinary Approach to Assistive Technology for Parkinson's Disease Dementia.Clinical interventions in aging · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionFreezing of gait can be seen in a significant number of people with Parkinson's disease. Disappointingly, the classic standard treatment of Parkinson's disease with dopamine replacement has not shown promising results in improving the freezing of gait. Hence the approach have shifted towards using non-invasive methods to address this problem.
objectivesTo assess the effect of laser cane as a visual cue on the freezing of gait of people with Parkinson's disease and further determine the effect of laser light beam width and color on the freezing of gait.
methods7 known Parkinson's Disease patients were enrolled in this study, all of whom had at least one episode of freezing at at least one clinical visit. These patients underwent gait analysis in 4 stages: walking without a cane, walking with a thin red light laser cane, a thick red light laser cane, and a green light laser cane.
resultsUsing laser canes effectively improved nearly all parameters of walking, including right and left stride length, step length, the velocity of movement, and rotation time, compared to walking without a stick. Using different colors of laser cane didn't make any significant difference in improving the freezing of gait of our patients. Nevertheless, increasing the laser light beam width significantly improved almost all walking parameters.
conclusionThis is the first study assessing the effect of laser light beam width on freezing of gait in Parkinson's disease patients and shows promising results in regards to increasing the thickness of laser lights in order to improve walking parameters in Parkinson's disease patients more effectively. Furthermore, this is the second study to evaluate the effect of laser light color, contradicting the previous results by showing no significant correlation between the color of laser light and improvements in walking parameters.
Indexed as
Identifiers
38918305What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.