INTRODUCTION
Postural instability, a key component of functional mobility, is often overlooked by both clinicians and their patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), who focus on gait impairments. However, balance problems and resulting falls are major factors determining quality of life, morbidity, and mortality in individuals with PD [
1-
4]. According to a retrospective fall study of 489 in-patients admitted to a department of neurology, approximately 60% of PD patients had a history of at least one fall over the previous twelve months [
4]. A recent meta-analysis and prospective studies also report considerably high fall incidences, even in optimally-medicated, early-stage PD (40–70%) [
1,
5,
6]. From the results of epidemiologic studies, it is evident that balance dysfunction and related falls are common in individuals with PD, and the risk of falls increases gradually with disease progression without vigorous intervention to reduce the risk.
Balance can be defined as control of the body’s center of mass (CoM) over its base of support in order to achieve postural equilibrium and orientation [
7]. Balance control requires active brain processes that integrate information from all levels of the nervous and musculoskeletal system, not only while moving (dynamic balance) but also while standing still (static balance). The basalganglia, a key pathologic structure in PD, is involved in control of balance via the thalamic-cortical-spinal loops and via the brainstem pedunculopontine nucleus and the reticulospinal system [
8]. The basal ganglia is involved in controlling the flexibility of postural tone, scaling up the magnitude of postural movements, selecting postural strategies for environmental context (central set), and automatizing postural responses and gait [
8-
10]. Although subtle balance problems, such as increased postural sway jerkiness and slow turning, can be measured in PD even at the time of diagnosis, the severity and type of balance problems increases with disease progression [
11,
12].
Although dopamine-sensitive bradykinesia and rigidity progressively affect balance and gait early in the disease, dopamine insensitive-balance problems increase later in the disease: impaired kinesthesia, inflexible postural set, lack of automaticity, and executive dysfunction. Each patient with PD eventually gets postural instability but the severity of each type of balance impairments may be very different. For example,
Figure 1 shows declines in different types of balance control at different stages of disease for two different patients until each patient reaches a threshold of postural instability and frequent falls. The purpose of this review is to systematically summarize the types and underlying causes of balance impairments contributing to postural instability in people with PD. A better understanding of balance impairments would improve management of balance dysfunction and prevent falls in people with PD [
13-
17].
RIGIDITY RESULTS IN BIOMECHANICAL IMPAIRMENTS
Excessive, inflexible axial postural tone, called rigidity, results in many biomechanical impairments affecting postural control such as abnormally stooped (flexed) postural alignment, forward head, Pisa syndrome, reduced joint range of motion, and low back pain. Stooped posture, due to excessive, static flexor muscle activity, is associated with increased velocity and jerkiness of postural sway in stance [
18,
19]. Automatic postural responses to external displacements are also impaired by a stooped postural alignment. The postural stability margin, which is defined by the difference in displacement of the center of pressure (CoP) under the feet and displacement of the body CoM in response to external perturbations, is reduced in healthy subjects who assume a stooped posture like PD (
Figure 2) [
19]. This observation suggests that a stooped posture, per se, has a destabilizing effect on postural control and is not an attempt to compensate for postural instability. Responses to backward body perturbations are especially compromised by a stooped posture, perhaps due to a shortening of the tibialis anterior muscle, which is critical for bringing the backward falling body back to equilibrium.
Axial rigidity measured during standing is most excessive at the hip joints than at the trunk or neck [
20]. The severity of axial rigidity has been shown to relate to impairments in turning and rolling [
21]. An inflexible pattern of excessive postural tone and consequent reduced range of motion mechanically impedes the ability to execute postural reactions effectively. For example, rigidity is associated with cocontraction of muscles around joints in response to postural perturbations, rather than efficient postural synergies up one side of the body, making patients vulnerable to loss of balance and falls [
9].
BRADYKINESIA IMPAIRS POSTURAL RESPONSES AND ANTICIPATORY POSTURAL ADJUSTMENTS
Automatic postural responses to unexpected external perturbations of the body’s CoM can be classified into feet-in-place and change-in-support strategies [
22]. In patients with PD, both types of postural response strategies are smaller and slower (bradykinetic) than normal. Feet-in-place postural responses are slow to develop force with reduced scaling up for larger perturbations, often leading to displacement of the body CoM within base of support [
9]. Interestingly, postural responses are even weaker with levodopa medication [
9]. Patients with PD are also unable to quickly change postural muscle synergies with changes in initial support conditions, called inflexible “central set”, for example, standing versus-sitting posture, holding versus-free stance, surface translation versus-rotation, and voluntary resist versus-relax [
23,
24]. The difficultly adapting the pattern of muscle activation for changes in conditions may explain why it is difficult for patients with PD to benefit from assistive devices, such as canes and walkers, to improve stability.
Change-in-support strategies (for example, compensatory stepping or reaching) are also slowed and smaller due to bradykinesia [
25]. Small compensatory stepping responses in response to external perturbations are larger when patients are provided a visual cue and can see their stepping leg [
14]. However, when the stepping leg is not visible, the step to a visual target falls short, consistent with an increased visual dependence to overcome bradykinetic compensatory steps [
14].
Patients who have freezing of gait also show freezing of their compensatory stepping responses to recover equilibrium, suggesting a common pathological neural pathway that leads to falls [
23]. In addition, whereas healthy subjects quickly reach out with an arm to grab stationary objects to stabilize equilibrium in response to an external perturbation, patients with PD often bring their arms closer to their bodies [
25].
Unfortunately deep brain stimulation (DBS) does not improve bradykinetic postural responses. Six months after DBS in the subthalamic nucleus (STN), both feet-in-place and compensatory stepping responses are weaker than before surgery whether the stimulators are turned on or off, although turning the stimulator on improves postural responses slightly (
Figure 3) [
26]. DBS in the globus pallidus interna (GPi) did not improve or worsen postural responses [
26]. A recent meta-analysis also showed that postural instability and gait difficulty subscores of the Unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale were not maintained over time after surgery, particularly for STN DBS compared to GPi [
27].
Like postural responses, anticipatory (or preparatory) postural adjustments (APAs) are bradykinetic. APAs are essential in maintaining postural equilibrium during self-initiated, voluntary movements such as: step-initiation, rise-to-toes, arm raising, or leg lifting. For example, normal step initiation is associated with a preparatory lateral shift of the body CoM toward the stance leg due to active displacement of the CoP toward the swing leg prior to lifting a foot off the ground. Patients with PD have smaller than normal APAs and are unable to scale up the size of APAs as needed with wider stance (
Figure 4) [
28]. The small size of the lateral APA weight shift prior to step initiation, results in start hesitation or akinetic freezing of gait, especially when initial stance width is wide. Bradykinetic APAs may explain why patients with PD tend to keep their feet close together as a narrow stance requires smaller APAs than a wide stance to initiate gait. Levodopa and external cues increase the size of APAs prior to step initiation, whereas DBS surgery, especially in the STN, reduces the size of APAs [
29].
IMPAIRED KINESTHESIA AFFECTS SENSORY INTEGRATION
Central sensory integration involves active interpretation of visual, vestibular and somatosensory inputs for orientation of the body in space. When sensory information is unavailable or conflicting, a process of sensory reweighting occurs so the nervous system ignores ambiguous, unhelpful information and relies more on useful sensory information. For example, somatosensory input normally contributes 70% to postural stability when standing on a firm surface with eyes open but, but vestibular input contributes 100% to postural stability when standing on an unstable surface with eyes closed [
30]. Patients with advanced PD are often unable to stand on an unstable surface with eye closed, although their vestibular system is usually normal [
31]. This finding suggests that patients with PD may take more time for the sensory reweighting process than healthy people. Another problem in sensory orientation is that the patients with PD have impaired use of proprioception for a kinesthetic body map. For example, patients with PD have difficulty perceiving small changes in surface inclination, i.e., impaired kinesthesia [
32]. Consequently, a poor sense of kinesthesia in PD is compensated by an over-reliance on vision for postural orientation.