| Rigidity |
increased resistance or tightness to passive movement. Resistance is regardless of type of movement or activity, amplitude or speed of movement. Stiffness is felt in both agonist and antagonist muscles or felt in both directions of movement. Can directly impact on decreasing range of motion, increasing resting energy expenditure and fatigue levels. Cardinal sign of Parkinson’s disease |
| Decorticate rigidity |
UE are in flexion and LE are in extension. Indicative of a lesion at or above the brain stem (above superior colliculus) |
| Decerebrate rigidity |
both UE and LE are in extension. Indicative of lesion in the brainstem between the vestibular nucleus and the superior colliculus |
| Akinesia |
absence of movement. It is a deficit in the preparatory phase of movement control. Usually there will be moments of freezing or a sudden break or block in movement |
| Hypokinesia |
reduced amplitude of movement |
| Micrographia |
an abnormally small handwriting that is difficult to read, seen in patients with Parkinson’s disease |
| Hypomimia |
reduced facial expressiveness |
| Festinating gait |
patient takes multiple short steps to catch up his or her center of mass (COM) to avoid falling, and may eventually increase speed into a run or trot. |
| –Anteropulsive festinating gait |
a forward festinating gait |
| –Retropulsive gait |
a backward festinating gait |
| Akathisia |
a sense of an inner restlessness or need to move, agitation |
| Dysphagia |
impaired swallowing; patient may demonstrate abnormal tongue movement, difficulty chewing, bolus formation, delayed swallow response and impaired persitalsis. Dysphagia can lead to choking or aspiration pneumonia and impaired nutrition |
| Sialorrhea |
excessive drooling as a result of excessive salivary production and decreased spontaneous swallowing |
| Bradyphrenia |
an intellectual disorder characterized by a slowing of thought and information processing |
| Presbyopia |
inability to focus on printed words |
| Apraxia |
motor planning difficulties |
| Coma |
a state of unconscious; there is no arousal or awareness, eyes remain closed, no sleep /awake cycles |
| Vegetative state |
unresponsive vigilance; patient has reduced level of awareness with eye opening and normalization on vegetative functions (respiration, digestion, BP control), return of sleep/awake cycle; however patient has no ability to speak or follow commands, no awareness of self or environment , and no meaningful motor or cognitive function |
| Minimally conscious state (MCS) |
severely altered consciousness with minimal but definite awareness of self or environment |
| Declarative memory |
ability to recall facts and previous events which is used for explicit learning |
| Procedural memory |
a habit; ability to recall the process of doing any repeated activities or tasks; repeated practice of a motor task may lead to procedural memory |
