25 Parkinson patients and 31 controls, matched for age and verbal IQ, were tested on a handwriting task prior to receiving levodopa. 14 of the original 25 patients and 22 of the original 31 controls were also tested on maze-tracing ability prior to levodopa treatment. The Parkinson patients were retested on the same tests after being on levodopa for at least 2 1/2 mo.; the controls were retested after a comparable time interval. Parkinson patients demonstrated improvement in tasks measuring fine motor control and speed. The control groups did not show improvement on either task.
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