A Tool for Home Monitoring in Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is one of the most common degenerative diseases, characterized by motor problems of that develop as the illness progresses. This study, through the use of a method based on the use of three wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors, placed respectively on the feet and on the lower back, proposes a objective tool for the disease evaluation. Moreover, this system allows to a continuous monitoring in the home scenario during the daily activity of the subjects. In this study 28 volunteers were involved for the test (21 healthy subjects and 7 PD subjects). An algorithm capable of analyzing the data acquired by the IMUs has been implemented. The developed algorithm discriminate the walking periods and extract useful parameters for gait analysis. The results show an objective evaluation of the gait and turn parameters and a correlation between the drug administration and the ON and OFF states.