PERFORM: a system for monitoring, assessment and management of patients with Parkinson's disease

Measurement of Physical Activity Divided Into Inside and Outside the Home in People With Parkinson's Disease: A Feasibility Study

RATIONALE

In people with Parkinson's disease (PD), quantitative assessment of activities inside and outside the home is crucial for planning effective rehabilitation tailored to a person's living conditions and characteristics.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

We examined the feasibility of combining a physical activity metre and a daily activity diary for people with PD.

METHODS

Physical activity was evaluated using a triaxial accelerometer and recorded in a daily activity diary by the participant. The feasibility outcome was the data adoption rate, which was the physical activity rate calculated from the activity metre wearing time and the missing times from the daily activity diary.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Of the 10 participants, nine had a complete data set (adoption rate 90%). The mean physical activity metre wearing time was 14.12 ± 2.26 h/day, with a mean missing time of 25.7 ± 18.1 min/day in the daily activity diary. Combining a physical activity metre and a daily activity diary is feasible in people with PD, particularly when planning rehabilitation protocols to enhance daily physical activity.

Integrating Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and motion analysis for emerging precision medicine applications in Parkinson's Disease

One of the key challenges in Big Data for clinical research and healthcare is how to integrate new sources of data, whose relation to disease processes are often not well understood, with multiple classical clinical measurements that have been used by clinicians for years to describe disease processes and interpret therapeutic outcomes. Without such integration, even the most promising data from emerging technologies may have limited, if any, clinical utility. This paper presents an approach to address this challenge, illustrated through an example in Parkinson's Disease (PD) management. We show how data from various sensing sources can be integrated with traditional clinical measurements used in PD; furthermore, we show how leveraging Big Data frameworks, augmented by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, can distinctively enrich the data resources available to clinicians. We showcase the potential of this approach in a cohort of 50 PD patients who underwent both evaluations with an Integrated Motion Analysis Suite (IMAS) composed of a battery of multimodal, portable, and wearable sensors and traditional Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS)-III evaluations. Through techniques including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), elastic net regression, and clustering analysis we demonstrate how this combined approach can be used to improve clinical motor assessments and to develop personalized treatments. The scalability of our approach enables systematic data generation and analysis on increasingly larger datasets, confirming the integration potential of IMAS, whose use in PD assessments is validated herein, within Big Data paradigms. Compared to existing approaches, our solution offers a more comprehensive, multi-dimensional view of patient data, enabling deeper clinical insights and greater potential for personalized treatment strategies. Additionally, we show how IMAS can be integrated into established clinical practices, facilitating its adoption in routine care and complementing emerging methods, for instance, non-invasive brain stimulation. Future work will aim to augment our data repositories with additional clinical data, such as imaging and biospecimen data, to further broaden and enhance these foundational methodologies, leveraging the full potential of Big Data and AI.

[Commercial devices for monitoring symptoms in Parkinson's disease: benefits, limitations and trends]

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that significantly affects patients' quality of life. Treatment of PD requires accurate assessment of motor and non-motor symptoms, which is often complicated by subjectivity in reporting symptoms, and the limited availability of neurologists. Commercial wearable devices, which monitor PD symptoms continuously and outside the clinical setting, have appeared to address these challenges. These devices include PKG™, Kinesia 360™, Kinesia U™, PDMonitor™ and STAT-ON™. These devices use advanced technologies, including accelerometers, gyroscopes and specific algorithms to provide objective data on motor symptoms, such as tremor, dyskinesia and bradykinesia. Despite their potential, the adoption of these devices has been limited, due to concerns about their accuracy, complexity of use and the lack of independent validation. The correlation between the measurements obtained from these devices and traditional clinical observations varies, and their usability and patient adherence are critical areas for improvement. Validation and usability studies with a sufficient number of patients, standardised protocols and integration with hospitals' IT systems are essential to optimise their usefulness and improve patient outcomes.

Predictive Data Analytics in Telecare and Telehealth: Systematic Scoping Review

BACKGROUND

Telecare and telehealth are important care-at-home services used to support individuals to live more independently at home. Historically, these technologies have reactively responded to issues. However, there has been a recent drive to make better use of the data from these services to facilitate more proactive and predictive care.

OBJECTIVE

This review seeks to explore the ways in which predictive data analytics techniques have been applied in telecare and telehealth in at-home settings.

METHODS

The PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist was adhered to alongside Arksey and O'Malley's methodological framework. English language papers published in MEDLINE, Embase, and Social Science Premium Collection between 2012 and 2022 were considered and results were screened against inclusion or exclusion criteria.

RESULTS

In total, 86 papers were included in this review. The types of analytics featuring in this review can be categorized as anomaly detection (n=21), diagnosis (n=32), prediction (n=22), and activity recognition (n=11). The most common health conditions represented were Parkinson disease (n=12) and cardiovascular conditions (n=11). The main findings include: a lack of use of routinely collected data; a dominance of diagnostic tools; and barriers and opportunities that exist, such as including patient-reported outcomes, for future predictive analytics in telecare and telehealth.

CONCLUSIONS

All papers in this review were small-scale pilots and, as such, future research should seek to apply these predictive techniques into larger trials. Additionally, further integration of routinely collected care data and patient-reported outcomes into predictive models in telecare and telehealth offer significant opportunities to improve the analytics being performed and should be explored further. Data sets used must be of suitable size and diversity, ensuring that models are generalizable to a wider population and can be appropriately trained, validated, and tested.

Improved measurement of disease progression in people living with early Parkinson's disease using digital health technologies

BACKGROUND

Digital health technologies show promise for improving the measurement of Parkinson's disease in clinical research and trials. However, it is not clear whether digital measures demonstrate enhanced sensitivity to disease progression compared to traditional measurement approaches.

METHODS

To this end, we develop a wearable sensor-based digital algorithm for deriving features of upper and lower-body bradykinesia and evaluate the sensitivity of digital measures to 1-year longitudinal progression using data from the WATCH-PD study, a multicenter, observational digital assessment study in participants with early, untreated Parkinson's disease. In total, 82 early, untreated Parkinson's disease participants and 50 age-matched controls were recruited and took part in a variety of motor tasks over the course of a 12-month period while wearing body-worn inertial sensors. We establish clinical validity of sensor-based digital measures by investigating convergent validity with appropriate clinical constructs, known groups validity by distinguishing patients from healthy volunteers, and test-retest reliability by comparing measurements between visits.

RESULTS

We demonstrate clinical validity of the digital measures, and importantly, superior sensitivity of digital measures for distinguishing 1-year longitudinal change in early-stage PD relative to corresponding clinical constructs.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results demonstrate the potential of digital health technologies to enhance sensitivity to disease progression relative to existing measurement standards and may constitute the basis for use as drug development tools in clinical research.

Upper limb intention tremor assessment: opportunities and challenges in wearable technology

BACKGROUND

Tremors are involuntary rhythmic movements commonly present in neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, and multiple sclerosis. Intention tremor is a subtype associated with lesions in the cerebellum and its connected pathways, and it is a common symptom in diseases associated with cerebellar pathology. While clinicians traditionally use tests to identify tremor type and severity, recent advancements in wearable technology have provided quantifiable ways to measure movement and tremor using motion capture systems, app-based tasks and tools, and physiology-based measurements. However, quantifying intention tremor remains challenging due to its changing nature.

METHODOLOGY & RESULTS

This review examines the current state of upper limb tremor assessment technology and discusses potential directions to further develop new and existing algorithms and sensors to better quantify tremor, specifically intention tremor. A comprehensive search using PubMed and Scopus was performed using keywords related to technologies for tremor assessment. Afterward, screened results were filtered for relevance and eligibility and further classified into technology type. A total of 243 publications were selected for this review and classified according to their type: body function level: movement-based, activity level: task and tool-based, and physiology-based. Furthermore, each publication's methods, purpose, and technology are summarized in the appendix table.

CONCLUSIONS

Our survey suggests a need for more targeted tasks to evaluate intention tremors, including digitized tasks related to intentional movements, neurological and physiological measurements targeting the cerebellum and its pathways, and signal processing techniques that differentiate voluntary from involuntary movement in motion capture systems.

Inertial measurement unit sensor-based gait analysis in adults and older adults: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Gait assessment has been used in a wide range of clinical applications, and gait velocity is also a leading predictor of disease and physical functional aspects in older adults.

RESEARCH QUESTION

The study aim to examine the changes in IMU-based gait parameters according to age in healthy adults aged 50 and older, to analyze differences between aging patients.

METHODS

A total of 296 healthy adults (65.32 ± 6.74 yrs; 83.10 % female) were recruited. Gait assessment was performed using an IMU sensor-based gait analysis system, and 3D motion information of hip and knee joints was obtained using magnetic sensors. The basic characteristics of the study sample were stratified by age category, and the baseline characteristics between the groups were compared using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Pearson's correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between age as the dependent variable and several measures of gait parameters and joint angles as independent variables.

RESULTS

The results of this study found that there were significant differences in gait velocity and both terminal double support in the three groups according to age, and statistically significant differences in the three groups in hip joint angle and knee joints angle. In addition, it was found that the gait velocity and knee/hip joint angle changed with age, and the gait velocity and knee/hip joint angle were also different in the elderly and adult groups.

CONCLUSIONS

We found changes in gait parameters and joint angles according to age in healthy adults and older adults and confirmed the difference in gait velocity and joint angles between adults and older adults.

Self-Management Systems for Patients and Clinicians in Parkinson's Disease Care: A Scoping Review

Background

Digital self-management tools including mobile apps and wearables can enhance personalized care in Parkinson's disease, and incorporating patient and clinician feedback into their evaluation can empower users and nurture patient-clinician relationships, necessitating a review to assess the state of the art and refine their use.

Objective

This review aimed to summarize the state of the art of self-management systems used in Parkinson's disease management, detailing the application of self-management techniques and the integration of clinicians. It also aimed to provide a concise synthesis on the acceptance and usability of these systems from the clinicians' standpoint, reflecting both patient engagement and clinician experience.

Methods

The review was organized following the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews and PICOS frameworks. Studies were retrieved from PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore. Data was collected using a predefined form and then analyzed descriptively.

Results

Of the 15,231 studies retrieved, 33 were included. Five technology types were identified, with systems combining technologies being the most evaluated. Common self-management strategies included educational material and symptom journals. Only 11 studies gathered data from clinicians or reported evidence of clinician integration; out of those, six studies point out the importance of raw data availability, data visualization, and integrated data summaries.

Conclusions

While self-management systems for Parkinson's disease are well-received by patients, the studies underscore the urgency for more research into their usability for clinicians and integration into daily medical workflows to enhance overall care quality.

A Paradigm Shift in the Management of Patients with Parkinson's Disease

BACKGROUND

Technological evolution leads to the constant enhancement of monitoring systems and recording symptoms of diverse disorders.

SUMMARY

For Parkinson's disease, wearable devices empowered with machine learning analysis are the main modules for objective measurements. Software and hardware improvements have led to the development of reliable systems that can detect symptoms accurately and be implicated in the follow-up and treatment decisions.

KEY MESSAGES

Among many different devices developed so far, the most promising ones are those that can record symptoms from all extremities and the trunk, in the home environment during the activities of daily living, assess gait impairment accurately, and be suitable for a long-term follow-up of the patients. Such wearable systems pave the way for a paradigm shift in the management of patients with Parkinson's disease.

Integration of force and IMU sensors for developing low-cost portable gait measurement system in lower extremities

Gait analysis is the method to accumulate walking data. It is useful in diagnosing diseases, follow-up of symptoms, and rehabilitation post-treatment. Several techniques have been developed to assess human gait. In the laboratory, gait parameters are analyzed by using a camera capture and a force plate. However, there are several limitations, such as high operating costs, the need for a laboratory and a specialist to operate the system, and long preparation time. This paper presents the development of a low-cost portable gait measurement system by using the integration of flexible force sensors and IMU sensors in outdoor applications for early detection of abnormal gait in daily living. The developed device is designed to measure ground reaction force, acceleration, angular velocity, and joint angles of the lower extremities. The commercialized device, including the motion capture system (Motive-OptiTrack) and force platform (MatScan), is used as the reference system to validate the performance of the developed system. The results of the system show that it has high accuracy in measuring gait parameters such as ground reaction force and joint angles in lower limbs. The developed device has a strong correlation coefficient compared with the commercialized system. The percent error of the motion sensor is below 8%, and the force sensor is lower than 3%. The low-cost portable device with a user interface was successfully developed to measure gait parameters for non-laboratory applications to support healthcare applications.

Clinical utility of a personalized and long-term monitoring device for Parkinson's disease in a real clinical practice setting: An expert opinion survey on STAT-ON™

BACKGROUND

STAT-ON™ is an objective tool that registers ON-OFF fluctuations making possible to know the state of the patient at every moment of the day in normal life. Our aim was to analyze the opinion of different Parkinson's disease experts about the STAT-ON™ tool after using the device in a real clinical practice setting (RCPS).

METHODS

STAT-ON™ was provided by the Company Sense4Care to Spanish neurologists for using it in a RCPS. Each neurologist had the device for at least three months and could use it in PD patients at his/her own discretion. In February 2020, a survey with 30 questions was sent to all participants.

RESULTS

Two thirds of neurologists (53.8% females; mean age 44.9±9 years old) worked in a Movement Disorders Unit, the average experience in PD was 16±6.9 years, and 40.7% of them had previously used other devices. A total of 119 evaluations were performed in 114 patients (range 2-9 by neurologist; mean 4.5±2.3). STAT-ON™ was considered "quite" to "very useful" by 74% of the neurologists with an overall opinion of 6.9±1.7 (0, worst; 10, best). STAT-ON™ was considered better than diaries by 70.3% of neurologists and a useful tool for the identification of patients with advanced PD by 81.5%. Proper identification of freezing of gait episodes and falls were frequent limitations reported.

CONCLUSION

STAT-ON™ could be a useful device for using in PD patients in clinical practice.

The Methods of Fall Detection: A Literature Review

Fall Detection Systems (FDS) are automated systems designed to detect falls experienced by older adults or individuals. Early or real-time detection of falls may reduce the risk of major problems. This literature review explores the current state of research on FDS and its applications. The review shows various types and strategies of fall detection methods. Each type of fall detection is discussed with its pros and cons. Datasets of fall detection systems are also discussed. Security and privacy issues related to fall detection systems are also considered in the discussion. The review also examines the challenges of fall detection methods. Sensors, algorithms, and validation methods related to fall detection are also talked over. This work found that fall detection research has gradually increased and become popular in the last four decades. The effectiveness and popularity of all strategies are also discussed. The literature review underscores the promising potential of FDS and highlights areas for further research and development.

Spatial and Temporal Gait Characteristics in Patients Admitted to a Neuro-Rehabilitation Department with Age-Related White Matter Changes: A Gait Analysis and Clinical Study

BACKGROUND

Patients with age-related white matter changes (ARWMC) frequently present a gait disorder, depression and cognitive impairment. Our aims are to define which alterations in the gait parameters are associated with motor or neuro-psychological impairment and to assess the role of motor, mood or cognitive dysfunction in explaining the variance of the gait parameters.

METHODS

Patients with gait disorders admitted to a Neuro-rehabilitation Department, affected by vascular leukoencephalopathy who had ARWMC confirmed by a brain MRI, were consecutively enrolled, classified by a neuroradiological scale (Fazekas 1987) and compared to healthy controls. We excluded subjects unable to walk independently, subjects with hydrocephalus or severe aphasia, with orthopaedic and other neurological pathologies conditioning the walking pattern. Patients and controls were assessed by clinical and functional scales (Mini Mental State Examination, Geriatric Depression Scale, Nevitt Motor Performance Scale, Berg Balance Scale, Functional Independence Measure), and computerised gait analysis was performed to assess the spatial and temporal gait parameters in a cross-sectional study.

RESULTS

We recruited 76 patients (48 males, aged 78.3 ± 6.2 years) and 14 controls (6 males, aged 75.8 ± 5 years). In the multiple regression analysis, the gait parameter with overall best model summary values, associated with the ARWMC severity, was the stride length even after correction for age, sex, weight and height (R² = 0.327). The motor performances justified at least in part of the gait disorder (R² change = 0.220), but the mood state accounted independently for gait alterations (R² change = 0.039). The increase in ARWMC severity, the reduction of motor performance and a depressed mood state were associated with a reduction of stride length (R = 0.766, R² = 0.587), reduction of gait speed (R² = 0.573) and an increase in double support time (R² = 0.421).

CONCLUSION

The gait disorders in patients with ARWMC are related to motor impairment, but the presence of depression is an independent factor for determining gait alterations and functional status. These data pave the way for longitudinal studies, including gait parameters, to quantitatively assess gait changes after treatment or to monitor the natural progression of the gait disorders.

Co-Designing Digital Technologies for Improving Clinical Care in People with Parkinson's Disease: What Did We Learn?

The healthcare model is shifting towards integrated care approaches. This new model requires patients to be more closely involved. The iCARE-PD project aims to address this need by developing a technology-enabled, home-based, and community-centered integrated care paradigm. A central part of this project is the codesign process of the model of care, exemplified by the active participation of patients in the design and iterative evaluation of three sensor-based technological solutions. We proposed a codesign methodology used for testing the usability and acceptability of these digital technologies and present initial results for one of them, MooVeo. Our results show the usefulness of this approach in testing the usability and acceptability as well as the opportunity to incorporate patients' feedback into the development. This initiative will hopefully help other groups incorporate a similar codesign approach and develop tools that are well adapted to patients' and care teams' needs.

Evaluating Gait Impairment in Parkinson's Disease from Instrumented Insole and IMU Sensor Data

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by a variety of motor and non-motor symptoms, some of them pertaining to gait and balance. The use of sensors for the monitoring of patients' mobility and the extraction of gait parameters, has emerged as an objective method for assessing the efficacy of their treatment and the progression of the disease. To that end, two popular solutions are pressure insoles and body-worn IMU-based devices, which have been used for precise, continuous, remote, and passive gait assessment. In this work, insole and IMU-based solutions were evaluated for assessing gait impairment, and were subsequently compared, producing evidence to support the use of instrumentation in everyday clinical practice. The evaluation was conducted using two datasets, generated during a clinical study, in which patients with PD wore, simultaneously, a pair of instrumented insoles and a set of wearable IMU-based devices. The data from the study were used to extract and compare gait features, independently, from the two aforementioned systems. Subsequently, subsets comprised of the extracted features, were used by machine learning algorithms for gait impairment assessment. The results indicated that insole gait kinematic features were highly correlated with those extracted from IMU-based devices. Moreover, both had the capacity to train accurate machine learning models for the detection of PD gait impairment.

Recent trends in wearable device used to detect freezing of gait and falls in people with Parkinson's disease: A systematic review

Background

The occurrence of freezing of gait (FOG) is often observed in moderate to last-stage Parkinson's disease (PD), leading to a high risk of falls. The emergence of the wearable device has offered the possibility of FOG detection and falls of patients with PD allowing high validation in a low-cost way.

Objective

This systematic review seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of existing literature to establish the forefront of sensors type, placement and algorithm to detect FOG and falls among patients with PD.

Methods

Two electronic databases were screened by title and abstract to summarize the state of art on FOG and fall detection with any wearable technology among patients with PD. To be eligible for inclusion, papers were required to be full-text articles published in English, and the last search was completed on September 26, 2022. Studies were excluded if they; (i) only examined cueing function for FOG, (ii) only used non-wearable devices to detect or predict FOG or falls, and (iii) did not provide sufficient details about the study design and results. A total of 1,748 articles were retrieved from two databases. However, only 75 articles were deemed to meet the inclusion criteria according to the title, abstract and full-text reviewed. Variable was extracted from chosen research, including authorship, details of the experimental object, type of sensor, device location, activities, year of publication, evaluation in real-time, the algorithm and detection performance.

Results

A total of 72 on FOG detection and 3 on fall detection were selected for data extraction. There were wide varieties of the studied population (from 1 to 131), type of sensor, placement and algorithm. The thigh and ankle were the most popular device location, and the combination of accelerometer and gyroscope was the most frequently used inertial measurement unit (IMU). Furthermore, 41.3% of the studies used the dataset as a resource to examine the validity of their algorithm. The results also showed that increasingly complex machine-learning algorithms had become the trend in FOG and fall detection.

Conclusion

These data support the application of the wearable device to access FOG and falls among patients with PD and controls. Machine learning algorithms and multiple types of sensors have become the recent trend in this field. Future work should consider an adequate sample size, and the experiment should be performed in a free-living environment. Moreover, a consensus on provoking FOG/fall, methods of assessing validity and algorithm are necessary.Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO, identifier CRD42022370911.

Deep Clinical Phenotyping of Parkinson's Disease: Towards a New Era of Research and Clinical Care

Despite recent advances in technology, clinical phenotyping of Parkinson's disease (PD) has remained relatively limited as current assessments are mainly based on empirical observation and subjective categorical judgment at the clinic. A lack of comprehensive, objective, and quantifiable clinical phenotyping data has hindered our capacity to diagnose, assess patients' conditions, discover pathogenesis, identify preclinical stages and clinical subtypes, and evaluate new therapies. Therefore, deep clinical phenotyping of PD patients is a necessary step towards understanding PD pathology and improving clinical care. In this review, we present a growing community consensus and perspective on how to clinically phenotype this disease, that is, to phenotype the entire course of disease progression by integrating capacity, performance, and perception approaches with state-of-the-art technology. We also explore the most studied aspects of PD deep clinical phenotypes, namely, bradykinesia, tremor, dyskinesia and motor fluctuation, gait impairment, speech impairment, and non-motor phenotypes.

Hurdles to developing and scaling remote patients' health management tools and systems: a scoping review

BACKGROUND

Despite all the excitement and hype generated regarding the expected transformative impact of digital technology on the healthcare industry, traditional healthcare systems around the world have largely remained unchanged and resultant improvements in developed countries are slower than anticipated. One area which was expected to significantly improve the quality of and access to primary healthcare services in particular is remote patient monitoring and management. Based on a combination of rapid advances in body sensors and information and communication technologies (ICT), it was hoped that remote patient management tools and systems (RPMTSs) would significantly reduce the care burden on traditional healthcare systems as well as health-related costs. However, the uptake or adoption of above systems has been extremely slow and their roll out has not yet properly taken off especially in developing countries where they ought to have made the greatest positive impact.

AIM

The aim of the study was to assess whether or not recent, relevant literature would support the development of in-community, design, deployment and implementation framework based on three factors thought to be important drivers and levers of RPMTS's adoption and scalability.

METHODS

A rapid, scoping review conducted on relevant articles obtained from PubMed, MEDLINE, PMC and Cochrane databases and grey literature on Google and published between 2012 and May 2020, by combining a number of relevant search terms and phrases.

RESULTS

Most RPMTSs are targeted at and focused on a single disease, do not extensively involve patients and clinicians in their early planning and design phases, are not designed to best serve a specific catchment area and are mainly directed at post-hospital, disease management settings. This may be leading to a situation where patients, potential patients and clinicians simply do not make use of these tools, leading to low adoption and scalability thereof.

CONCLUSION

The development of a user-centred, context-dependent, customizable design and deployment framework could potentially increase the adoption and scalability of RPMTSs, if such framework addressed a combination of diseases, prevalent in a given specific catchment area, especially in developing countries with limited financial resources.

A New Paradigm in Parkinson's Disease Evaluation With Wearable Medical Devices: A Review of STAT-ONTM

In the past decade, the use of wearable medical devices has been a great breakthrough in clinical practice, trials, and research. In the Parkinson's disease field, clinical evaluation is time limited, and healthcare professionals need to rely on retrospective data collected through patients' self-filled diaries and administered questionnaires. As this often leads to inaccurate evaluations, a more objective system for symptom monitoring in a patient's daily life is claimed. In this regard, the use of wearable medical devices is crucial. This study aims at presenting a review on STAT-ONTM, a wearable medical device Class IIa, which provides objective information on the distribution and severity of PD motor symptoms in home environments. The sensor analyzes inertial signals, with a set of validated machine learning algorithms running in real time. The device was developed for 12 years, and this review aims at gathering all the results achieved within this time frame. First, a compendium of the complete journey of STAT-ONTM since 2009 is presented, encompassing different studies and developments in funded European and Spanish national projects. Subsequently, the methodology of database construction and machine learning algorithms design and development is described. Finally, clinical validation and external studies of STAT-ONTM are presented.

Review-Emerging Portable Technologies for Gait Analysis in Neurological Disorders

The understanding of locomotion in neurological disorders requires technologies for quantitative gait analysis. Numerous modalities are available today to objectively capture spatiotemporal gait and postural control features. Nevertheless, many obstacles prevent the application of these technologies to their full potential in neurological research and especially clinical practice. These include the required expert knowledge, time for data collection, and missing standards for data analysis and reporting. Here, we provide a technological review of wearable and vision-based portable motion analysis tools that emerged in the last decade with recent applications in neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease and Multiple Sclerosis. The goal is to enable the reader to understand the available technologies with their individual strengths and limitations in order to make an informed decision for own investigations and clinical applications. We foresee that ongoing developments toward user-friendly automated devices will allow for closed-loop applications, long-term monitoring, and telemedical consulting in real-life environments.

Gait metrics analysis utilizing single-point inertial measurement units: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

Wearable sensors, particularly accelerometers alone or combined with gyroscopes and magnetometers in an inertial measurement unit (IMU), are a logical alternative for gait analysis. While issues with intrusive and complex sensor placement limit practicality of multi-point IMU systems, single-point IMUs could potentially maximize patient compliance and allow inconspicuous monitoring in daily-living. Therefore, this review aimed to examine the validity of single-point IMUs for gait metrics analysis and identify studies employing them for clinical applications.

METHODS

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Guidelines (PRISMA) were followed utilizing the following databases: PubMed; MEDLINE; EMBASE and Cochrane. Four databases were systematically searched to obtain relevant journal articles focusing on the measurement of gait metrics using single-point IMU sensors.

RESULTS

A total of 90 articles were selected for inclusion. Critical analysis of studies was conducted, and data collected included: sensor type(s); sensor placement; study aim(s); study conclusion(s); gait metrics and methods; and clinical application. Validation research primarily focuses on lower trunk sensors in healthy cohorts. Clinical applications focus on diagnosis and severity assessment, rehabilitation and intervention efficacy and delineating pathological subjects from healthy controls.

DISCUSSION

This review has demonstrated the validity of single-point IMUs for gait metrics analysis and their ability to assist in clinical scenarios. Further validation for continuous monitoring in daily living scenarios and performance in pathological cohorts is required before commercial and clinical uptake can be expected.

Grouping successive freezing of gait episodes has neutral to detrimental effect on freeze detection and prediction in Parkinson's disease

Freezing of gait (FOG) is an intermittent walking disturbance experienced by people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Wearable FOG identification systems can improve gait and reduce the risk of falling due to FOG by detecting FOG in real-time and providing a cue to reduce freeze duration. However, FOG prediction and prevention is desirable. Datasets used to train machine learning models often generate ground truth FOG labels based on visual observation of specific lower limb movements (event-based definition) or an overall inability to walk effectively (period of gait disruption based definition). FOG definition ambiguity may affect model performance, especially with respect to multiple FOG in rapid succession. This research examined whether merging multiple freezes that occurred in rapid succession could improve FOG detection and prediction model performance. Plantar pressure and lower limb acceleration data were used to extract a feature set and train decision tree ensembles. FOG was labeled using an event-based definition. Additional datasets were then produced by merging FOG that occurred in rapid succession. A merging threshold was introduced where FOG that were separated by less than the merging threshold were merged into one episode. FOG detection and prediction models were trained for merging thresholds of 0, 1, 2, and 3 s. Merging slightly improved FOG detection model performance; however, for the prediction model, merging resulted in slightly later FOG identification and lower precision. FOG prediction models may benefit from using event-based FOG definitions and avoiding merging multiple FOG in rapid succession.

Assessing the usability of wearable devices to measure gait and physical activity in chronic conditions: a systematic review

BACKGROUND

The World Health Organisation's global strategy for digital health emphasises the importance of patient involvement. Understanding the usability and acceptability of wearable devices is a core component of this. However, usability assessments to date have focused predominantly on healthy adults. There is a need to understand the patient perspective of wearable devices in participants with chronic health conditions.

METHODS

A systematic review was conducted to identify any study design that included a usability assessment of wearable devices to measure mobility, through gait and physical activity, within five cohorts with chronic conditions (Parkinson's disease [PD], multiple sclerosis [MS], congestive heart failure, [CHF], chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder [COPD], and proximal femoral fracture [PFF]).

RESULTS

Thirty-seven studies were identified. Substantial heterogeneity in the quality of reporting, the methods used to assess usability, the devices used, and the aims of the studies precluded any meaningful comparisons. Questionnaires were used in the majority of studies (70.3%; n = 26) with a reliance on intervention specific measures (n = 16; 61.5%). For those who used interviews (n = 17; 45.9%), no topic guides were provided, while methods of analysis were not reported in over a third of studies (n = 6; 35.3%).

CONCLUSION

Usability of wearable devices is a poorly measured and reported variable in chronic health conditions. Although the heterogeneity in how these devices are implemented implies acceptance, the patient voice should not be assumed. In the absence of being able to make specific usability conclusions, the results of this review instead recommends that future research needs to: (1) Conduct usability assessments as standard, irrespective of the cohort under investigation or the type of study undertaken. (2) Adhere to basic reporting standards (e.g. COREQ) including the basic details of the study. Full copies of any questionnaires and interview guides should be supplied through supplemental files. (3) Utilise mixed methods research to gather a more comprehensive understanding of usability than either qualitative or quantitative research alone will provide. (4) Use previously validated questionnaires alongside any intervention specific measures.

Could New Generations of Sensors Reshape the Management of Parkinson’s Disease?

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a chronic neurologic disease that has a great impact on the patient’s quality of life. The natural course of the disease is characterized by an insidious onset of symptoms, such as rest tremor, shuffling gait, bradykinesia, followed by improvement with the initiation of dopaminergic therapy. However, this “honeymoon period” gradually comes to an end with the emergence of motor fluctuations and dyskinesia. PD patients need long-term treatments and monitoring throughout the day; however, clinical examinations in hospitals are often not sufficient for optimal management of the disease. Technology-based devices are a new comprehensive assessment method of PD patient’s symptoms that are easy to use and give unbiased measurements. This review article provides an exhaustive overview of motor complications of advanced PD and new approaches to the management of the disease using sensors.

Advance Care Planning and Care Coordination for People With Parkinson's Disease and Their Family Caregivers-Study Protocol for a Multicentre, Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with motor- and non-motor symptoms. When the disease progresses, symptom burden increases. Consequently, additional care demands develop, the complexity of treatment increases, and the patient's quality of life is progressively threatened. To address these challenges, there is growing awareness of the potential benefits of palliative care for people with PD. This includes communication about end-of-life issues, such as Advance Care Planning (ACP), which helps to elicit patient's needs and preferences on issues related to future treatment and care. In this study, we will assess the impact and feasibility of a nurse-led palliative care intervention for people with PD across diverse European care settings.

Methods: The intervention will be evaluated in a multicentre, open-label randomized controlled trial, with a parallel group design in seven European countries (Austria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden and United Kingdom). The “PD_Pal intervention” comprises (1) several consultations with a trained nurse who will perform ACP conversations and support care coordination and (2) use of a patient-directed “Parkinson Support Plan-workbook”. The primary endpoint is defined as the percentage of participants with documented ACP-decisions assessed at 6 months after baseline (t1). Secondary endpoints include patients' and family caregivers' quality of life, perceived care coordination, patients' symptom burden, and cost-effectiveness. In parallel, we will perform a process evaluation, to understand the feasibility of the intervention. Assessments are scheduled at baseline (t0), 6 months (t1), and 12 months (t2). Statistical analysis will be performed by means of Mantel–Haenszel methods and multilevel logistic regression models, correcting for multiple testing.

Discussion: This study will contribute to the current knowledge gap on the application of palliative care interventions for people with Parkinson's disease aimed at ameliorating quality of life and managing end-of-life perspectives. Studying the impact and feasibility of the intervention in seven European countries, each with their own cultural and organisational characteristics, will allow us to create a broad perspective on palliative care interventions for people with Parkinson's disease across settings.

Clinical Trial Registration:www.trialregister.nl, NL8180.

Local Pattern Transformation Based Feature Extraction for Recognition of Parkinson's Disease Based on Gait Signals

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neuro-degenerative disorder primarily triggered due to the deterioration of dopamine-producing neurons in the substantia nigra of the human brain. The early detection of Parkinson’s disease can assist in preventing deteriorating health. This paper analyzes human gait signals using Local Binary Pattern (LBP) techniques during feature extraction before classification. Supplementary to the LBP techniques, Local Gradient Pattern (LGP), Local Neighbour Descriptive Pattern (LNDP), and Local Neighbour Gradient Pattern (LNGP) were utilized to extract features from gait signals. The statistical features were derived and analyzed, and the statistical Kruskal–Wallis test was carried out for the selection of an optimal feature set. The classification was then carried out by an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for the identified feature set. The proposed Symmetrically Weighted Local Neighbour Gradient Pattern (SWLNGP) method achieves a better performance, with 96.28% accuracy, 96.57% sensitivity, and 95.94% specificity. This study suggests that SWLNGP could be an effective feature extraction technique for the recognition of Parkinsonian gait.

Wearable Technology to Detect Motor Fluctuations in Parkinson's Disease Patients: Current State and Challenges

Monitoring of motor symptom fluctuations in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients is currently performed through the subjective self-assessment of patients. Clinicians require reliable information about a fluctuation's occurrence to enable a precise treatment rescheduling and dosing adjustment. In this review, we analyzed the utilization of sensors for identifying motor fluctuations in PD patients and the application of machine learning techniques to detect fluctuations. The review process followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Ten studies were included between January 2010 and March 2021, and their main characteristics and results were assessed and documented. Five studies utilized daily activities to collect the data, four used concrete scenarios executing specific activities to gather the data, and only one utilized a combination of both situations. The accuracy for classification was 83.56-96.77%. In the studies evaluated, it was not possible to find a standard cleaning protocol for the signal captured, and there is significant heterogeneity in the models utilized and in the different features introduced in the models (using spatiotemporal characteristics, frequential characteristics, or both). The two most influential factors in the good performance of the classification problem are the type of features utilized and the type of model.

Dyskinesia estimation during activities of daily living using wearable motion sensors and deep recurrent networks

Levodopa-induced dyskinesias are abnormal involuntary movements experienced by the majority of persons with Parkinson's disease (PwP) at some point over the course of the disease. Choreiform as the most common phenomenology of levodopa-induced dyskinesias can be managed by adjusting the dose/frequency of PD medication(s) based on a PwP's motor fluctuations over a typical day. We developed a sensor-based assessment system to provide such information. We used movement data collected from the upper and lower extremities of 15 PwPs along with a deep recurrent model to estimate dyskinesia severity as they perform different activities of daily living (ADL). Subjects performed a variety of ADLs during a 4-h period while their dyskinesia severity was rated by the movement disorder experts. The estimated dyskinesia severity scores from our model correlated highly with the expert-rated scores (r = 0.87 (p < 0.001)), which was higher than the performance of linear regression that is commonly used for dyskinesia estimation (r = 0.81 (p < 0.001)). Our model provided consistent performance at different ADLs with minimum r = 0.70 (during walking) to maximum r = 0.84 (drinking) in comparison to linear regression with r = 0.00 (walking) to r = 0.76 (cutting food). These findings suggest that when our model is applied to at-home sensor data, it can provide an accurate picture of changes of dyskinesia severity facilitating effective medication adjustments.

Gait Parameters Measured from Wearable Sensors Reliably Detect Freezing of Gait in a Stepping in Place Task

Freezing of gait (FOG), a debilitating symptom of Parkinson’s disease (PD), can be safely studied using the stepping in place (SIP) task. However, clinical, visual identification of FOG during SIP is subjective and time consuming, and automatic FOG detection during SIP currently requires measuring the center of pressure on dual force plates. This study examines whether FOG elicited during SIP in 10 individuals with PD could be reliably detected using kinematic data measured from wearable inertial measurement unit sensors (IMUs). A general, logistic regression model (area under the curve = 0.81) determined that three gait parameters together were overall the most robust predictors of FOG during SIP: arrhythmicity, swing time coefficient of variation, and swing angular range. Participant-specific models revealed varying sets of gait parameters that best predicted FOG for each participant, highlighting variable FOG behaviors, and demonstrated equal or better performance for 6 out of the 10 participants, suggesting the opportunity for model personalization. The results of this study demonstrated that gait parameters measured from wearable IMUs reliably detected FOG during SIP, and the general and participant-specific gait parameters allude to variable FOG behaviors that could inform more personalized approaches for treatment of FOG and gait impairment in PD.

Prediction of Freezing of Gait in Parkinson's Disease Using Wearables and Machine Learning

Freezing of gait (FOG) is one of the most troublesome symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, affecting more than 50% of patients in advanced stages of the disease. Wearable technology has been widely used for its automatic detection, and some papers have been recently published in the direction of its prediction. Such predictions may be used for the administration of cues, in order to prevent the occurrence of gait freezing. The aim of the present study was to propose a wearable system able to catch the typical degradation of the walking pattern preceding FOG episodes, to achieve reliable FOG prediction using machine learning algorithms and verify whether dopaminergic therapy affects the ability of our system to detect and predict FOG. Methods: A cohort of 11 Parkinson’s disease patients receiving (on) and not receiving (off) dopaminergic therapy was equipped with two inertial sensors placed on each shin, and asked to perform a timed up and go test. We performed a step-to-step segmentation of the angular velocity signals and subsequent feature extraction from both time and frequency domains. We employed a wrapper approach for feature selection and optimized different machine learning classifiers in order to catch FOG and pre-FOG episodes. Results: The implemented FOG detection algorithm achieved excellent performance in a leave-one-subject-out validation, in patients both on and off therapy. As for pre-FOG detection, the implemented classification algorithm achieved 84.1% (85.5%) sensitivity, 85.9% (86.3%) specificity and 85.5% (86.1%) accuracy in leave-one-subject-out validation, in patients on (off) therapy. When the classification model was trained with data from patients on (off) and tested on patients off (on), we found 84.0% (56.6%) sensitivity, 88.3% (92.5%) specificity and 87.4% (86.3%) accuracy. Conclusions: Machine learning models are capable of predicting FOG before its actual occurrence with adequate accuracy. The dopaminergic therapy affects pre-FOG gait patterns, thereby influencing the algorithm’s effectiveness.

A Mobile Phone App-Based Tai Chi Training in Parkinson's Disease: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Study

Introduction: With an increasing number of China's aging population, Parkinson's disease (PD) increases year by year. Persons with PD exhibit abnormal balance functions, leading to motor skills difficulties, such as unstable walking or even falling. Therefore, activities of daily living and quality of life are affected. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of Tai Chi training based on the mobile phone app in improving the balance ability of persons with PD. Methods and Analysis: A randomized, single-blind, parallel controlled trial will be conducted in this study. One hundred forty-four persons with PD who meet the inclusion criteria will be randomly divided into a 1:1:1 ratio: (1) control group, (2) basic experimental group (basic app with no Tai Chi training features), and (3) balanced-enhanced experimental group (basic app with Tai Chi training features). Individuals with PD will be evaluated on balance and motor function outcomes. The primary outcome measure is the limits of stability (including the maximum excursion and direction control); the secondary outcome measures include the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale III (UPDRS-III), Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Functional Reach Test (FRT), Timed Up & Go (TUG), 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT), and 39-item Parkinson's Disease Questionnaire (PDQ-39). Each group of patients will go through an assessment at baseline, 17 and 33 weeks. Discussion: This study will evaluate the effectiveness of the mobile phone app Tai Chi training on the balance function of persons with PD. We assume that a challenging Tai Chi project based on a mobile phone app will improve balance in the short and long term. As walking stability progresses, it is expected that daily activities and quality of life improve. These findings will be used to improve the effectiveness of future home management measures for persons with PD. Ethics and Dissemination: This study has been approved by the ethical review committee of the Shanghai University of Sport (approval number: 102772019RT056). Informed consent will be obtained from all participants or their guardians. The authors intend to submit the study findings to peer-reviewed journals or academic conferences to be published. Clinical Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2000029135).

Measuring freezing of gait during daily-life: an open-source, wearable sensors approach

Background

Although a growing number of studies focus on the measurement and detection of freezing of gait (FoG) in laboratory settings, only a few studies have attempted to measure FoG during daily life with body-worn sensors. Here, we presented a novel algorithm to detect FoG in a group of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in the laboratory (Study I) and extended the algorithm in a second cohort of people with PD at home during daily life (Study II).

Methods

In Study I, we described of our novel FoG detection algorithm based on five inertial sensors attached to the feet, shins and lumbar region while walking in 40 participants with PD. We compared the performance of the algorithm with two expert clinical raters who scored the number of FoG episodes from video recordings of walking and turning based on duration of the episodes: very short (< 1 s), short (2–5 s), and long (> 5 s). In Study II, a different cohort of 48 people with PD (with and without FoG) wore 3 wearable sensors on their feet and lumbar region for 7 days. Our primary outcome measures for freezing were the % time spent freezing and its variability.

Results

We showed moderate to good agreement in the number of FoG episodes detected in the laboratory (Study I) between clinical raters and the algorithm (if wearable sensors were placed on the feet) for short and long FoG episodes, but not for very short FoG episodes. When extending this methodology to unsupervised home monitoring (Study II), we found that percent time spent freezing and the variability of time spent freezing differentiated between people with and without FoG (p < 0.05), and that short FoG episodes account for 69% of the total FoG episodes.

Conclusion

Our findings showed that objective measures of freezing in PD using inertial sensors on the feet in the laboratory are matching well with clinical scores. Although results found during daily life are promising, they need to be validated. Objective measures of FoG with wearable technology during community-living would be useful for managing this distressing feature of mobility disability in PD.

Automatic Resting Tremor Assessment in Parkinson's Disease Using Smartwatches and Multitask Convolutional Neural Networks

Resting tremor in Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most distinctive motor symptoms. Appropriate symptom monitoring can help to improve management and medical treatments and improve the patients' quality of life. Currently, tremor is evaluated by physical examinations during clinical appointments; however, this method could be subjective and does not represent the full spectrum of the symptom in the patients' daily lives. In recent years, sensor-based systems have been used to obtain objective information about the disease. However, most of these systems require the use of multiple devices, which makes it difficult to use them in an ambulatory setting. This paper presents a novel approach to evaluate the amplitude and constancy of resting tremor using triaxial accelerometers from consumer smartwatches and multitask classification models. These approaches are used to develop a system for an automated and accurate symptom assessment without interfering with the patients' daily lives. Results show a high agreement between the amplitude and constancy measurements obtained from the smartwatch in comparison with those obtained in a clinical assessment. This indicates that consumer smartwatches in combination with multitask convolutional neural networks are suitable for providing accurate and relevant information about tremor in patients in the early stages of the disease, which can contribute to the improvement of PD clinical evaluation, early detection of the disease, and continuous monitoring.

Clinical utility of a personalized and long-term monitoring device for Parkinson's disease in a real clinical practice setting: An expert opinion survey on STAT-ON™

BACKGROUND

STAT-ON™ is an objective tool that registers ON-OFF fluctuations making possible to know the state of the patient at every moment of the day in normal life. Our aim was to analyze the opinion of different Parkinson's disease experts about the STAT-ON™ tool after using the device in a real clinical practice setting (RCPS).

METHODS

STAT-ON™ was provided by the Company Sense4Care to Spanish neurologists for using it in a RCPS. Each neurologist had the device for at least three months and could use it in PD patients at his/her own discretion. In February 2020, a survey with 30 questions was sent to all participants.

RESULTS

Two thirds of neurologists (53.8% females; mean age 44.9±9 years old) worked in a Movement Disorders Unit, the average experience in PD was 16±6.9 years, and 40.7% of them had previously used other devices. A total of 119 evaluations were performed in 114 patients (range 2-9 by neurologist; mean 4.5±2.3). STAT-ON™ was considered "quite" to "very useful" by 74% of the neurologists with an overall opinion of 6.9±1.7 (0, worst; 10, best). STAT-ON™ was considered better than diaries by 70.3% of neurologists and a useful tool for the identification of patients with advanced PD by 81.5%. Proper identification of freezing of gait episodes and falls were frequent limitations reported.

CONCLUSION

STAT-ON™ could be a useful device for using in PD patients in clinical practice.

Technology-Enabled Care: Integrating Multidisciplinary Care in Parkinson's Disease Through Digital Technology

Parkinson's disease (PD) management requires the involvement of movement disorders experts, other medical specialists, and allied health professionals. Traditionally, multispecialty care has been implemented in the form of a multidisciplinary center, with an inconsistent clinical benefit and health economic impact. With the current capabilities of digital technologies, multispecialty care can be reshaped to reach a broader community of people with PD in their home and community. Digital technologies have the potential to connect patients with the care team beyond the traditional sparse clinical visit, fostering care continuity and accessibility. For example, video conferencing systems can enable the remote delivery of multispecialty care. With big data analyses, wearable and non-wearable technologies using artificial intelligence can enable the remote assessment of patients' conditions in their natural home environment, promoting a more comprehensive clinical evaluation and empowering patients to monitor their disease. These advances have been defined as technology-enabled care (TEC). We present examples of TEC under development and describe the potential challenges to achieve a full integration of technology to address complex care needs in PD.

Deep brain stimulation: a review of the open neural engineering challenges

OBJECTIVE

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established and valid therapy for a variety of pathological conditions ranging from motor to cognitive disorders. Still, much of the DBS-related mechanism of action is far from being understood, and there are several side effects of DBS whose origin is unclear. In the last years DBS limitations have been tackled by a variety of approaches, including adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS), a technique that relies on using chronically implanted electrodes on 'sensing mode' to detect the neural markers of specific motor symptoms and to deliver on-demand or modulate the stimulation parameters accordingly. Here we will review the state of the art of the several approaches to improve DBS and summarize the main challenges toward the development of an effective aDBS therapy.

APPROACH

We discuss models of basal ganglia disorders pathogenesis, hardware and software improvements for conventional DBS, and candidate neural and non-neural features and related control strategies for aDBS.

MAIN RESULTS

We identify then the main operative challenges toward optimal DBS such as (i) accurate target localization, (ii) increased spatial resolution of stimulation, (iii) development of in silico tests for DBS, (iv) identification of specific motor symptoms biomarkers, in particular (v) assessing how LFP oscillations relate to behavioral disfunctions, and (vi) clarify how stimulation affects the cortico-basal-ganglia-thalamic network to (vii) design optimal stimulation patterns.

SIGNIFICANCE

This roadmap will lead neural engineers novel to the field toward the most relevant open issues of DBS, while the in-depth readers might find a careful comparison of advantages and drawbacks of the most recent attempts to improve DBS-related neuromodulatory strategies.

Quantification of tremor severity with a mobile tremor pen

BACKGROUND

An objective evaluation of tremor severity is necessary to document the course of disease, the efficacy of treatment, or interventions in clinical trials. Most available objective quantification devices are complex, immobile, or not validated.

NEW METHOD

We used the TREMITAS-System that comprises a pen-shaped sensor for tremor quantification. The Power of Main Peak and the Total Power were used as surrogate markers for tremor amplitude. Tremor severity was assessed by the TREMITAS-System and relevant subscores of the MDS-UPDRS and TETRAS rating scales in 14 patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and 16 patients with Essential tremor (ET) off and on therapy. We compared tremor amplitudes assessed during wearable and hand-held constellations.

RESULTS

We found significant correlations between tremor amplitudes captured by TREM and tremor severity assessed by the MDS-UPDRS in PD (r = 0.638-0.779) and the TETRAS in ET (r = 0.597-0. 704) off and on therapy. The TREMITAS-System captured the L-Dopa-induced improvement of tremor in PD patients (p = 0.027). Tremor amplitudes did not differ between the handheld and wearable constellation (p > 0.05).

COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHODS

We confirm the results of previous studies using inertial based sensors that tremor severity and drug-induced changes of tremor severity can be quantified using inertial based sensors. The assessment of tremor amplitudes was not influenced by using a handheld or wearable constellation.

CONCLUSIONS

The TREMITAS-System can be used to quantify rest tremor in PD and postural tremor in ET and is capable of detecting clinically relevant changes in tremor in clinical and research settings.

New Sensor and Wearable Technologies to Aid in the Diagnosis and Treatment Monitoring of Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the brain characterized by the impairment of the nigrostriatal system. This impairment leads to specific motor manifestations (i.e., bradykinesia, tremor, and rigidity) that are assessed through clinical examination, scales, and patient-reported outcomes. New sensor-based and wearable technologies are progressively revolutionizing PD care by objectively measuring these manifestations and improving PD diagnosis and treatment monitoring. However, their use is still limited in clinical practice, perhaps because of the absence of external validation and standards for their continuous use at home. In the near future, these systems will progressively complement traditional tools and revolutionize the way we diagnose and monitor patients with PD.

Improving mobile health apps usage: a quantitative study on mPower data of Parkinson's disease

Purpose

The emergence of mobile health (mHealth) products has created a capability of monitoring and managing the health of patients with chronic diseases. These mHealth technologies would not be beneficial unless they are adopted and used by their target users. This study identifies key factors affecting the usage of mHealth apps based on user usage data collected from an mHealth app.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a dataset collected from an mHealth app named mPower, developed for patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), this paper investigated the effects of disease diagnosis, disease progression and mHealth app difficulty level on app usage, while controlling for user information. App usage is measured by five different activity counts of the app.

Findings

The results across five measures of mHealth app usage vary slightly. On average, previous professional diagnosis and high user performance scores encourage user participation and engagement, while disease progression hinders app usage.

Research limitations/implications

The findings potentially provide insights into better design and promotion of mHealth products and improve the capability of health management of patients with chronic diseases.

Originality/value

Studies on the mHealth app usage are critical but sparse because large-scale and reliable mHealth app usage data are limited. Unlike earlier works based solely on survey data, this research used a large user usage data collected from an mHealth app to study key factors affecting app usage. The methods presented in this study can serve as a pioneering work for the design and promotion of mHealth technologies.

Designing a mHealth clinical decision support system for Parkinson's disease: a theoretically grounded user needs approach

Background

Despite the established evidence and theoretical advances explaining human judgments under uncertainty, developments of mobile health (mHealth) Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS) have not explicitly applied the psychology of decision making to the study of user needs. We report on a user needs approach to develop a prototype of a mHealth CDSS for Parkinson’s disease (PD), which is theoretically grounded in the psychological literature about expert decision making and judgement under uncertainty.

Methods

A suite of user needs studies was conducted in 4 European countries (Greece, Italy, Slovenia, the UK) prior to the development of PD_Manager, a mHealth-based CDSS designed for Parkinson’s disease, using wireless technology. Study 1 undertook Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) including elicitation of user needs, cognitive demands and perceived risks/benefits (ethical considerations) associated with the proposed CDSS, through structured interviews of prescribing clinicians (N = 47). Study 2 carried out computational modelling of prescribing clinicians’ (N = 12) decision strategies based on social judgment theory. Study 3 was a vignette study of prescribing clinicians’ (N = 18) willingness to change treatment based on either self-reported symptoms data, devices-generated symptoms data or combinations of both.

Results

Study 1 indicated that system development should move away from the traditional silos of ‘motor’ and ‘non-motor’ symptom evaluations and suggest that presenting data on symptoms according to goal-based domains would be the most beneficial approach, the most important being patients’ overall Quality of Life (QoL). The computational modelling in Study 2 extrapolated different factor combinations when making judgements about different questions. Study 3 indicated that the clinicians were equally likely to change the care plan based on information about the change in the patient’s condition from the patient’s self-report and the wearable devices.

Conclusions

Based on our approach, we could formulate the following principles of mHealth design: 1) enabling shared decision making between the clinician, patient and the carer; 2) flexibility that accounts for diagnostic and treatment variation among clinicians; 3) monitoring of information integration from multiple sources. Our approach highlighted the central importance of the patient-clinician relationship in clinical decision making and the relevance of theoretical as opposed to algorithm (technology)-based modelling of human judgment.

Parkinson's disease and wearable devices, new perspectives for a public health issue: an integrative literature review

Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease, with an estimated prevalence of 41/100,000 individuals affected aged between 40 and 49 years old and 1,900/100,000 aged 80 and over. Based on the essentiality of ascertaining which wearable devices have clinical literary evidence and with the purpose of analyzing the information revealed by such technologies, we conducted this scientific article of integrative review. It is an integrative review, whose main objective is to carry out a summary of the state of the art of wearable devices used in patients with Parkinson's disease. After the review, we retrieved 8 papers. Of the selected articles, only 3 were not systematic reviews; one was a series of cases and two prospective longitudinal studies. These technologies have a very rich field of application; however, research is still necessary to make such evaluations reliable and crucial to the well-being of these patients.

mHealth and wearable technology should replace motor diaries to track motor fluctuations in Parkinson's disease

Accurately monitoring motor and non-motor symptoms as well as complications in people with Parkinson's disease (PD) is a major challenge, both during clinical management and when conducting clinical trials investigating new treatments. A variety of strategies have been relied upon including questionnaires, motor diaries, and the serial administration of structured clinical exams like part III of the MDS-UPDRS. To evaluate the potential use of mobile and wearable technologies in clinical trials of new pharmacotherapies targeting PD symptoms, we carried out a project (project BlueSky) encompassing four clinical studies, in which 60 healthy volunteers (aged 23-69; 33 females) and 95 people with PD (aged 42-80; 37 females; years since diagnosis 1-24 years; Hoehn and Yahr 1-3) participated and were monitored in either a laboratory environment, a simulated apartment, or at home and in the community. In this paper, we investigated (i) the utility and reliability of self-reports for describing motor fluctuations; (ii) the agreement between participants and clinical raters on the presence of motor complications; (iii) the ability of video raters to accurately assess motor symptoms, and (iv) the dynamics of tremor, dyskinesia, and bradykinesia as they evolve over the medication cycle. Future papers will explore methods for estimating symptom severity based on sensor data. We found that 38% of participants who were asked to complete an electronic motor diary at home missed ~25% of total possible entries and otherwise made entries with an average delay of >4 h. During clinical evaluations by PD specialists, self-reports of dyskinesia were marked by ~35% false negatives and 15% false positives. Compared with live evaluation, the video evaluation of part III of the MDS-UPDRS significantly underestimated the subtle features of tremor and extremity bradykinesia, suggesting that these aspects of the disease may be underappreciated during remote assessments. On the other hand, live and video raters agreed on aspects of postural instability and gait. Our results highlight the significant opportunity for objective, high-resolution, continuous monitoring afforded by wearable technology to improve upon the monitoring of PD symptoms.

Development of digital biomarkers for resting tremor and bradykinesia using a wrist-worn wearable device

Objective assessment of Parkinson's disease symptoms during daily life can help improve disease management and accelerate the development of new therapies. However, many current approaches require the use of multiple devices, or performance of prescribed motor activities, which makes them ill-suited for free-living conditions. Furthermore, there is a lack of open methods that have demonstrated both criterion and discriminative validity for continuous objective assessment of motor symptoms in this population. Hence, there is a need for systems that can reduce patient burden by using a minimal sensor setup while continuously capturing clinically meaningful measures of motor symptom severity under free-living conditions. We propose a method that sequentially processes epochs of raw sensor data from a single wrist-worn accelerometer by using heuristic and machine learning models in a hierarchical framework to provide continuous monitoring of tremor and bradykinesia. Results show that sensor derived continuous measures of resting tremor and bradykinesia achieve good to strong agreement with clinical assessment of symptom severity and are able to discriminate between treatment-related changes in motor states.

Systematic Review Looking at the Use of Technology to Measure Free-Living Symptom and Activity Outcomes in Parkinson's Disease in the Home or a Home-like Environment

BACKGROUND

The emergence of new technologies measuring outcomes in Parkinson's disease (PD) to complement the existing clinical rating scales has introduced the possibility of measurement occurring in patients' own homes whilst they freely live and carry out normal day-to-day activities.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review seeks to provide an overview of what technology is being used to test which outcomes in PD from free-living participant activity in the setting of the home environment. Additionally, this review seeks to form an impression of the nature of validation and clinimetric testing carried out on the technological device(s) being used.

METHODS

Five databases (Medline, Embase, PsycInfo, Cochrane and Web of Science) were systematically searched for papers dating from 2000. Study eligibility criteria included: adults with a PD diagnosis; the use of technology; the setting of a home or home-like environment; outcomes measuring any motor and non-motor aspect relevant to PD, as well as activities of daily living; unrestricted/unscripted activities undertaken by participants.

RESULTS

65 studies were selected for data extraction. There were wide varieties of participant sample sizes (<10 up to hundreds) and study durations (<2 weeks up to a year). The metrics evaluated by technology, largely using inertial measurement units in wearable devices, included gait, tremor, physical activity, bradykinesia, dyskinesia and motor fluctuations, posture, falls, typing, sleep and activities of daily living.

CONCLUSIONS

Home-based free-living testing in PD is being conducted by multiple groups with diverse approaches, focussing mainly on motor symptoms and sleep.