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L ‐dopa effects on H‐reflex recovery in Parkinson's disease
Author(s) -
Sax Daniel S.,
Johnson Timothy L.,
Feldman Robert G.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
annals of neurology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.764
H-Index - 296
eISSN - 1531-8249
pISSN - 0364-5134
DOI - 10.1002/ana.410020206
Subject(s) - parkinson's disease , reflex , facilitation , physical medicine and rehabilitation , psychology , audiology , disease , physical therapy , medicine , neuroscience
Conditioning of Hoffman's reflex in 7 normal and 7 parkinsonian subjects before and after L ‐dopa therapy was tested using standard methods. Features of the raw data, including timing, duration, and magnitude of facilitation, were estimated optimally with nonlinear least‐squares for each test sequence on each subject. For each parkinsonian subject there was a consistent trend with treatment for several features to return to the average features of the normal group; to varying degrees, clinical reduction in bradykinesia and rigidity was also observed in all cases. These results are in general agreement with similar previous studies reported by other investigators but offer stronger statistical evidence and differ in certain finer details.