Wearable sensors to track symptoms

npj Parkinson's disease (2021). DOI: 10.1038 / s41531-021-00171-0 "width =" 800 "height =" 530 "/> Distribution of walking speed at home and the average walking speed values ​​for clinical evaluations for each patient. Credit: NPJ Parkinson Disease (2021) DOI: 10.1038 / s41531-021-00171-0

EPFL scientists have developed algorithms that, when combined with wearable sensors, could help clinicians monitor the progression of Parkinson's disease and assess the effects of drugs commonly used by people with this neurodegenerative disorder.

Parkinson's disease affects neurons in an area of ​​the brain that controls movement and causes tremors, difficulty walking, and other motor problems. Doctors caring for people with Parkinson's must be able to assess the severity of symptoms and change the dosage of drugs that reduce such symptoms. To achieve this, clinicians rely on a handful of tests, e.g. B. those that measure the walking speed - or how fast people walk. However, these tests are usually done in the clinic every few months. Various factors can affect the results, including the experience of the person performing the assessment.

Scientists knew that walking speed in real-life conditions is a better indicator of assessing mobility for people with Parkinson's disease. Walking speed is often referred to as the sixth sign of life, which is just as important as blood pressure and heart rate. It is critical to people's independence in performing daily activities such as household chores and shopping. Walking speed has also been linked to life expectancy. "If you go faster, you can count on a longer lifespan," says Kamiar Aminian, professor at the Institute of Bioengineering and Director of the Laboratory for Motion Analysis and Measurement at EPFL.

So Aminian and his colleagues set out to analyze how the walking speed affects Parkinson's. The Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto in Portugal, which is a partner in the project, recruited 27 Parkinson's patients and provided each of them with a foot sensor that recorded how fast they were walking. During clinical evaluation, researchers asked patients to perform two types of walking attempts: in one case, people had to walk 20 meters in a straight line; In another test, they were asked to run in circles five times. The walking tests were done when patients were taking a drug that reduced motor problems and repeated when people were absent from the drug. Based on the data collected by the sensors, Aminian's team at EPFL calculated the average and fastest walking speed for each person.

"Daily activities can give us more information and tell us what is happening in real life. So we asked patients to go home and wear the sensor for a day," says the study's lead author, Arash Atrsaei, Ph .D. Student in Aminian's group. With the help of reliable algorithms that analyze movement data from the sensors, the researchers were able to objectively monitor the walking speed of the patients around the clock.

The team found that patients at home and in the clinic have, on average, the same walking speed. The analysis also found that people tended to move more slowly with short walking movements, such as when they took a few steps and then stopped to do another task, and faster when they ran for more than a minute, mostly outdoors .

During daily activities, some patients even walked faster than the maximum speed they walked in the clinic. These so-called "extraordinary steps" typically occurred between 30 minutes and three hours after taking the medication, the researchers found. "We can really see the effects of drugs by measuring the walking speed," says Atrsaei. The study was published in NPJ Parkinson's Disease.

The results suggest that monitoring gait speed during daily activities with wearable technology could help doctors optimize drug doses based on individual patient's motor symptoms. According to Atrsaei, doctors can use the sensors and special algorithms to monitor patients remotely, which could help protect vulnerable people in situations like the coronavirus pandemic.

Keeping Up: Walking with a partner is great, but it can slow you down More information: Arash Atrsaei, et al. Walking speed in clinical and daily life evaluations in Parkinson's patients: performance versus capacity, npj Parkinson's disease (2021). DOI: 10.1038 / s41531-021-00171-0 Provided by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

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