ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Neurol.
Sec. Movement Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1659581
Mediation analysis for integrating motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease, cognitive function and gait characteristics
Provisionally accepted
- 1Central Hospital of Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China
- 2Dalian Maritime University, Dalian, China
- 3Shenyang Fire Research Institute, Shenyang, China
- 4The Fifth People’s Hospital of Shenyang, Shenyang, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: In PD patients, the severity of motor symptoms is closely related to the degree of gait disorder and cognitive impairment; notably, the latter also exhibits a significant correlation with gait disorder. Evidently, there exists a complex relationship among motor symptoms, cognitive function and gait characteristics. Methods: This study aims to conduct an in-depth analysis of the relationships among MDS-UPDRS III score, MoCA score, and gait parameters by constructing a mediation model. Results: We found that higher MDS-UPDRS III score was associated with smaller plantar dorsiflexion angle, slower velocity, and worse swing phase symmetry, and these associations were not mediated by MoCA score. Age was a confounder in the relationship of MDS-UPDRS III score, MoCA, and velocity. Higher MDS-UPDRS III score was associated with shorter stride length, and this association was partially mediated by MoCA score. Conclusion: The results indicated that when analyzing plantar dorsiflexion angle and swing phase symmetry in PD patients, the influence of motor symptoms was dominant; when analyzing stride length, motor symptoms and cognitive function need to be considered simultaneously; when analyzing velocity, the influence of motor symptoms and age should be focused on.
Keywords: Parkinson's disease, motor symptom, Cognitive Function, Gait characteristic, mediation effect
Received: 04 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yin, Gao, Liu, Shen, Liu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Hong Gao, hgao@dlmu.edu.cn
Cui Wang, sjnsktg@163.com
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.