Wearable gait Analysis LAB as a biomarker of Parkinson’s disease motor stages and Quality of life: a preliminary study

Bradykinetic, shuffling and shorter steps are prototypical signs of gait in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and important indicators of Quality of Life (QoL). Advances in wearable technologies enabled their use to objectively evaluate these gait fluctuations complementing the subjective categorical clinical scales usually used by clinicians. This paper aims to study the ability of a wearable gait analysis lab, developed by our team, to serve as a biomarker of PD motor stages and an indicator of patients’ QoL. We accomplished experimental tests which involved repeated measurements of walking trials from a cross-section study with eighteen PD patients and thirteen healthy subjects. We measured gait spatiotemporal parameters and cross these data with commonly PD-scales to assess motor symptoms (UPDRS-III) and quantify patients’ QoL (PDQ39). Patients presented a bradykinetic gait with shorter steps, variability and asymmetry in spatiotemporal parameters. These prototypical signs were also observed along the disease progression considering UPDRS-III and PDQ39 levels. Positive outcomes demonstrated the feasibility and applicability of our objective wearable sensor-based gait analysis in PD to measure typical parkinsonian gait and a (bio)marker of PD motor stages and patients’ quality of life level.