ABSTRACT

Purpose: The objective of this study was to compare the effect of desktop conditions (mouse and touchscreen) on frontal lobe activity, motor function, and task performance on the part of patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and healthy control participants. Methods: Six PD patients and 6 control participants performed an attentional cuing task while using a mouse and touchscreen. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIR) was used to measure the oxygenation levels in the frontal lobe, and a motion capture system was used to measure motor function. Results: Compared to the mouse, touchscreen use increased the travel velocity of the arm and hand significantly, while mouse use caused more forward head displacement among participants. PD patients required longer response times (1,000 ms) to complete the attentional cuing task than did controls (796 ms). Although the difference was not statistically significant, PD patients showed lower levels of total oxygenation in the frontal lobe (0.13 μmol/L) than did the control group (0.31 μmol/L) and showed few changes in brain activation across both desktop conditions. PD patients had greater neck flexion (71°) than did the control group (58°). Conclusions: The results suggested that PD patients exhibited lower cognitive and motor function while using both a mouse and touchscreen than did a control group. Future studies could study the way complex cognitive tasks influence the cognitive and motor function of PD patients with tremor.