When Your Feet Feel Stuck to the Floor

by Christine Shade, PT, DPT, NCS and Sarah Pinasco, PT, DPT, Kaiser Permanente

Have you ever felt like your feet were stuck to the floor or your legs felt like cinder blocks making it impossible to move? This is something that happens to people with Parkinson’s Disease and is called freezing. The exact cause of freezing is unknown but tends to happen when dopaminergic drugs are wearing off. Freezing can happen when people are in new or stressful environments, when walking in narrow or wide-open spaces, or trying to make a turn. Freezing increases a person’s fall risk and can increase anxiety for the person with Parkinson’s as well as for their family members and friends.

The best way to manage freezing is to prevent it. Aerobic exercise helps control PD symptoms and freezing is no exception to the rule. Other strategies include taking long strides and hitting the ground with your heel first to prevent freezing from occurring. Anxiety is another precipitating factor for freezing. Managing anxiety through exercise, medication, or counseling can all help decrease the frequency of freezing. Be sure to discuss your freezing episodes with your neurologist and physical therapist.

When freezing cannot be prevented, there are some simple tricks that help you get out of a freeze. The first step is to stop struggling. Think about quicksand, the harder you fight, the more you sink in. At the first sign of freezing, STOP and take a deep breath, relax and put your weight back on your heels. From there try one of these strategies:

• Count out loud while you step to the beat

• Look at and then step onto a specific spot on the ground

• Shift your weight side to side then focus on taking one large step

• If turning LEFT try to turn your LEFT toe out, when turning RIGHT turn your RIGHT toe out.

How Caregivers Can Help

As a care partner, you can provide a great deal of help with freezing prevention and management. Freezing often occurs in a new or stressful environment, so try the following:

• Prevention

– Create a calm environment

– Try not to rush

– Make a plan with your partner about what to do when freezing starts

• Reaction

– Take a calming breath with your partner. Sometimes a simple hug can help.

– Encourage the tips you’ve learned in therapy or this journal as soon as you see freezing start

– Hold hands and shift your weight from side to side as if dancing

– Place your foot out to give your partner a goal to step toward

Freezing increases a person’s fall risk and can increase anxiety for the person with

Parkinson’s as well as for their family members and friends.