The effect of auditory cues on gait variability in people with Parkinson’s disease and older adults: a systematic review - Supplementary tables

Plain language summary: People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) tend to walk slower and with higher gait variability. Walking to metronome tones or musical cues are common rehabilitation techniques to improve gait speed and stride length for people with PD. However, recent reports suggest that cues may augment differences between each stride, making walking less even and less rhythmic, in other words, more variable. Gait variability is closely associated with fall risk. In this review, we investigated the effects of external rhythmic auditory cues – both metronome and music – to see how they affected gait variability for people with PD and older adults. The results of our analysis suggest that cues may increase gait variability for both groups. Several factors that may foster positive responses to cues are considered.