Validity of shoe-type inertial measurement units for Parkinson's disease patients during treadmill walking.
Myeounggon Lee, Changhong Youm, Jeanhong Jeon and 2 others
PMID 29764466WHAT IT FOUND
In people with Parkinson's disease walking steadily on a treadmill, shoe-mounted motion sensors matched motion-capture gait timing and step measures very closely.
They may be a practical clinic alternative, but only for steady treadmill walking.
Key findings
01For 17 participants with Parkinson's disease, shoe-mounted IMUs and motion capture showed excellent agreement in resultant linear acceleration on both shoes during 1-min treadmill walking.
02Cadence, step length and step time also showed excellent agreement overall, with ICC values of 1.000 for cadence, 0.990 for left step length, 0.999 for right step length, and 0.993 for both step times.
03Agreement was not equally strong for every person: some showed only moderate agreement for step measures (ICC 0.734 to 0.821), linked to delayed heel-strike detection by the IMU.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Only 17 of the 30 recruited participants completed the 1-minute treadmill walking test, and the authors said the reason was unclear. Participants were limited to Hoehn and Yahr stages 1 to 3 and had to be able to walk unaided, so the results may not apply to more severe Parkinson's disease. The study tested only steady treadmill walking in one direction, not overground walking, turning, direction changes or irregular surfaces. Some participants showed only moderate agreement for step length and step time, possibly because the shoe sensors detected heel strike later than the motion capture system. The sample size was small, and the authors noted that more participants might have made the agreement estimates more meaningful.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that shoe-mounted IMUs are validated for all Parkinson's disease gait assessment. The agreement was shown only for people who could walk steadily on a treadmill in the stages included in this study, and some participants had only moderate agreement for step measures.