Gait
Gait disturbances are a clinical hallmark of various neurological conditions, including Parkinson’s disease (PD) and normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). To advance the understanding of gait disturbances in NPH, we applied extensive gait and balance assessments, including kinetics, in combination with instrument-supported gait analysis. This provided a comprehensive characterisation of gait disturbances in patients with NPH, which might help to identify gait changes, including those occurring after shunt surgery, thereby contributing to a better understanding of disease progression and treatment response. Furthermore, the detailed and precise assessment by instrument-supported gait analysis may prove valuable for early NPH detection, as patients with NPH often initially present with subtle gait disturbances, like reduced security or balance when walking, which are usually not observable in the clinical examination and are difficult to objectify by standard clinical gait assessment (Semmler, Wunderle et al., 2025).
Instrument-supported gait analysis further revealed several characteristic differences in gait patterns between NPH and PD patients, as well as gait changes following disease-specific interventions. In particular, variability and rhythm, reflecting gait regularity, were best suited to differentiate gait disturbances in patients with NPH and PD and showed differential changes after interventions (Semmler et al., 2026).
A large-scale study in healthy subjects revealed age-related changes in motor functions: both basic (i.e., grip strength and finger-tapping frequency) and complex (i.e., composite sequential movements) motor performance declined with increasing age. Furthermore, sex modulated specific motor functions: while men exhibited greater grip strength and finger-tapping frequency than women, women performed better than men on tasks requiring dexterity. Besides, the study identified robust motor components representing dexterity, force, and speed across the adult lifespan, which may serve as a reference for characterising human motor abilities and their age-related decline in both healthy subjects and patients with motor deficits (Wunderle et al., 2024).
Selected publications:
- Semmler C, Wunderle V, Kuzu TD, Onur AO, Grefkes C, Barbe MT, Fink GR, Weiss PH (2025). Instrument-supported gait analysis characterizes gait domain changes in patients with suspected normal pressure hydrocephalus. Neurological Research and Practice, 7(1), 41. doi: 10.1186/s42466-025-00394-z
- Semmler C, Wunderle V, Kuzu TD, Onur OA, Grefkes C, Fink GR, Barbe MT, Weiss PH (2026). Differential gait disturbances in patients with Parkinson's disease and normal pressure hydrocephalus. Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, 108081. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2025.108081
- Wunderle V, Kuzu TD, Tscherpel C, Fink GR, Grefkes C, Weiss PH (2024). Age- and sex-related changes in motor functions: a comprehensive assessment and component analysis. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 16, 1368052. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2024.1368052