Analyzing 180° turns using an inertial system reveals early signs of progression of Parkinson's disease

Arash Salarian, Cris Zampieri, Fay B. Horak, Patricia Carlson-Kuhta, John G. Nutt, Kamiar Aminian

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

87 Scopus citations

Abstract

Changes in turning are one of the early motor deficiencies in Parkinson's Disease (PD). We have proposed a system based on wearable, inertial sensors and a novel automatic analysis algorithm that can assess 180° turns. Twelve patients in early stages of PD and 14 age-matched healthy subjects were enrolled in this study. Inertial sensors were attached on shanks and sternum. Measurement protocol included walking on a straight pathway, turning 180° and returning back. Subjects were measured 4 times, once every 6 months during an 18 months period. At the baseline, 9 subjects from each group repeated the test twice to assess test-retest reliability. Patients with mild PD had a very low Postural Instability Gait Difficulty (PIGD subscore of UPDRS III) score (average 0.67, min 0, max 3). The analysis showed that the patients had a significantly longer turning duration (2.18±0.43 vs. 1.79±0.27 seconds, p<0.02) and longer delay in their last step before initiating a turn (0.56±0.04 vs. 0.52±0.04 seconds, p<0.03). Estimated turning duration and other metrics had a high test-retest reliability (ρ>0.85). Turning duration also showed a significant Group*Time interaction (p<0.03) during the longitudinal study highlighting early signs of the progression of the disease.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Subtitle of host publicationEngineering the Future of Biomedicine, EMBC 2009
Pages224-227
Number of pages4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
Event31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society: Engineering the Future of Biomedicine, EMBC 2009 - Minneapolis, MN, United States
Duration: Sep 2 2009Sep 6 2009

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society: Engineering the Future of Biomedicine, EMBC 2009

Other

Other31st Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society: Engineering the Future of Biomedicine, EMBC 2009
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityMinneapolis, MN
Period9/2/099/6/09

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • General Medicine
  • Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
  • Signal Processing
  • Health Informatics

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