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Saberi Z S, Habibi S A H, Behzadipour S, Taghizadeh G. Diagnostic accuracy of Timed Up and Go test in patients with Parkinson's disease who had freezing of gait. Func Disabil J 2019; 2 (1) :157-163
URL: http://fdj.iums.ac.ir/article-1-107-en.html

Background: Freezing of gait (FOG) is a disabling clinical phenomenon in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is characterised by short episodes of inability to step and affect about 38.2 % of these patients. Abrupt FOG may disturb the balance and, thus, it is considered as a common cause of falls in PD. This study was designed to evaluate the fall diagnostic accuracy of the Timed Up and Go Test (TUG), a reliable and valid clinical test to assess mobility and risk of falls, in patients with PD who had FOG.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 80 subjects with a diagnosis of idiopathic PD who had FOG by mean ± SD age of 63.63±9.76 years and mean ± SD disease duration of 7.82±5.76 years were enrolled by simple non-probability sampling method. They were divided into two faller and non-faller groups based on the history of fall during the past six months. Sensitivity, specificity, negative and positive likelihood ratios, and receiver operator characteristic curve was calculated for TUG.
Results: The TUG score indicated significant differences between faller PD patients who had FOG and non-faller PD patients who had FOG (p=0.003). The best cut-off point for discriminating faller and non-faller PD patients who had FOG was 11.85 seconds (sensitivity= 68.97% and specificity= 86%).
Conclusion: TUG demonstrated moderate sensitivity and specificity to fall status in patients with PD who had FOG, suggesting its use in conjunction with other tests for screening those who may need intervention for decreasing falls.