Eye movements that shift quickly from one side to another can help people with Parkinson’s disease keep their balance, much like they do for healthy individuals.
While this might seem unexpected, researchers from São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil and the University of Lille in France found this surprising link in a recent study.
The study included ten people with Parkinson’s disease and eleven healthy people, all over 60 years old. Each participant had to stand still and balance in two different foot positions: feet side-by-side or one foot in front of the other.
During these tests, participants either looked steadily at a fixed point or moved their eyes side-to-side (horizontal eye movements) or up-and-down (vertical eye movements).
The researchers wanted to see if any specific type of eye movement would make balancing easier or harder for these individuals.
The findings were clear. Both healthy participants and those with Parkinson’s disease swayed less when making side-to-side eye movements compared to when they kept their gaze fixed on one point.
However, when people with Parkinson’s moved their eyes up and down, they actually experienced more body sway, making it harder for them to stay balanced.
Interestingly, rapid side-to-side eye movements, known as “horizontal saccadic eye movements,” appear to be helpful for stability. This benefit was unexpected because quick eye movements aren’t a natural reflex for avoiding falls.
People don’t usually move their eyes this way as a way of balancing, and even training these movements might be tricky. Fabio Barbieri, the study’s lead author and head of UNESP’s Human Movement Research Laboratory, explains that the research didn’t initially aim to find practical ways to help with balance.
Instead, it provided a deeper understanding of Parkinson’s disease and how it affects movement and thinking.
Barbieri also oversees a program called “Active Parkinson,” where people with Parkinson’s can join free physical activities twice a week. The program aims to help patients stay active and maintain their physical abilities, which may also help prevent falls.
The study’s initial idea was to explore whether eye movements could even help people with Parkinson’s keep steady, as the disease often causes problems with balance and movement control.
People with Parkinson’s generally have a hard time moving their eyes quickly, and their eyes tend to blink more slowly, which makes it difficult for them to gather information from their surroundings.
Yet, the study showed that when these individuals looked side-to-side, their stability improved, even though they still found it challenging to control their eye movements.
For people without Parkinson’s, looking up and down usually helps maintain balance, especially in younger adults. However, the study found that older adults—and especially those with Parkinson’s—struggle more with up-and-down movements, making them less helpful for stability.
This is likely because looking up and down requires more control and coordination, which can be harder as people age and their body systems slow down. These movements also engage less eye rotation, which means that the eyes and body might not coordinate as smoothly as they do during side-to-side movements.
According to Sérgio Tosi Rodrigues, another researcher from the team, the vertical eye movements may increase body sway because the body’s ability to integrate these movements weakens with age.
In previous studies, Rodrigues explored how eye movements affect balance in different groups, such as healthy younger and older adults, as well as people with other medical conditions.
He has found that our balance control relies on the visual information we receive and the small movements made by our eye muscles. Together, these signals help reduce swaying and keep us steady.
Age plays a major role in how well a person can balance. Motor control, vision, and balance tend to decrease with age, making older people more prone to falls. This natural decline in abilities can be even more challenging for people with Parkinson’s, who already face difficulties in balance and stability.
As Barbieri explains, it may be especially hard for people with Parkinson’s to balance when trying to look up and down, as this combination often makes them sway even more.
For healthy individuals, both side-to-side and up-and-down eye movements generally help with staying balanced better than simply staring at one spot. The brain, in these cases, can shift focus from keeping balance to moving the eyes, but it does so carefully to avoid a fall.
In summary, this research shows that fast side-to-side eye movements may be a helpful tool for people with Parkinson’s disease in reducing body sway and improving stability.
Though it’s not a solution that people with Parkinson’s could easily practice on their own, the findings add valuable insight into how eye and body coordination might be used to manage balance better, especially for older adults who may be more vulnerable to falls.
If you care about Parkinson’s disease, please read studies that Vitamin B may slow down cognitive decline, and Mediterranean diet could help lower risk of Parkinson’s.
For more health information, please see recent studies about how wheat gluten might be influencing our brain health, and Olive oil: a daily dose for better brain health.
The research findings can be found in Biomechanics.
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