Objective: This study aimed to investigate measures that best discriminated gait characteristics of people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) from age-matched healthy control subjects (HC) in a laboratory gait test and a week of daily life monitoring in a community setting.

Background: The assessment of gait at a singular moment in a clinic or laboratory setting may not reflect functional, everyday mobility.

Method: We recruited 16 people with PD and 15 HC. For the laboratory and a community setting, subjects wore three inertial sensors (Opals, APDM) attached to both feet and to the lumbar region. Subjects performed an instrumented stand and walk test (PD subjects tested in the on medication state) for the laboratory gait test with 5-14 strides. We compared 13 gait measures using the same algorithm on laboratory and community setting data. For a fair comparison between a laboratory and community setting, we used only bouts that had a similar number of strides. To investigate which specific measures best discriminate gait characteristics in PD from the HC group, we computed the area under the receiving operating curve (AUC).

Results: Measures that best discriminated gait characteristics of people with PD differed between the labatory gait setting and continuous monitoring in a community setting. Specifically, the lumbar coronal range of motion was the best discriminator in the laboratory (AUC=0.78), whereas the foot strike angle was the best discriminator in the community setting (AUC=0.84). Further, AUC for the best discriminative gait measures (such as foot strike angle, toe off angle, gait speed) in a community setting was more discriminative than gait measures from a laboratory test.

Conclusion: Measures that best discriminated gait characteristics of people with PD differed between a laboratory setting and a community setting. Further, the most discriminative gait measures in a community setting were more sensitive than gait measures from a laboratory test, suggesting daily life monitoring has a larger effect size. These results provide evidence that continuous monitoring might more accurately capture daily life gait impairments in people with PD.

« Back to MDS Virtual Congress 2020

MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/comparison-of-gait-measures-in-a-clinic-and-a-community-setting-in-people-with-and-without-parkinsons-disease/