Smith, Ryan Alexander, authorLaGasse, A. Blythe, advisorKnight, Andrew, committee memberTracy, Brian, committee member2021-09-062022-09-032021https://hdl.handle.net/10217/233720Music therapists who work from a neuroscience-informed approach use auditory cueing to facilitate movement exercises when working on motor goals with older adults with Parkinson's disease (PD). There is minimal research, however, comparing the effects of different auditory cueing techniques on the kinematic parameters of volitional arm movements in older adults with PD. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the effects of auditory cueing types––no auditory cues, rhythmic cues, and sonified musical cues––on the movement smoothness and movement variance of repetitive, volitional arm movements in older adults with PD. Seven older adults with PD and ten college students completed three trials of a repetitive arm reaching task in each of three auditory cueing conditions. The position of each participant's wrist was recorded in three dimensions using an infrared motion capture system at 120Hz. Data from the kinematics system were processed to compute two indicators of movement performance–normalized jerk (NJ), an indicator of movement smoothness; and spatiotemporal index (STI), a measure of movement path variance–for each participant. No significant differences in STI or NJ were observed between groups in the no cueing condition. Between-condition analysis demonstrated a significant difference in NJ between the no cueing condition and rhythmic cueing condition such that NJ values were larger, and therefore movements were less smooth, in the rhythmic cueing condition. There were no statistically significant differences in STI between cueing conditions. Exploratory analysis, however, revealed that there is a trend of decreased movement performance in the rhythmic cueing condition and improved movement performance in the sonified musical cueing condition for participants in the PD group. These findings were unexpected and warrant future research to determine which working mechanisms are the facilitators of change in auditory cueing-based rehabilitation of volitional movements.born digitalmasters thesesengCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.movement smoothnessmusical cueingrhythmic cueingmusic therapykinematicsParkinson'sText