Efficacy of Wearable Device Gait Training on Parkinson's Disease: A Randomized Controlled Open-label Pilot Study

Objective To investigate the efficacy of home-based gait training using the wearable Stride Management Assist (SMA) exoskeleton in people with moderately advanced Parkinson's disease. Methods This was a single-center, open-label, parallel, randomized controlled trial. We included outpatients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease who were capable of walking independently with or without walk aids and had Hoehn and Yahr stage 2-4 in the ON state. Patients were randomly assigned (1:1 ratio) to receive either SMA gait training (SMA group) or control gait training (control group). All participants underwent gait training for approximately 30 min. These training sessions were conducted 10 times for 3 months. We measured clinical outcomes at baseline and post-intervention. The between-group difference of distance in the three-minute walk test was the primary outcome. Results Of the 15 randomly assigned participants, 12 (five in the SMA group) completed this study. The between-group difference was a mean of 13.7 meters (standard error of the mean: 7.8) in the 3-minute walk test (p=0.109). The distance traversed increased from 141.4 m to 154.7 m in the SMA group (p=0.023), whereas there was no marked change in the control group. In addition, although there was a decrease in the physiological cost index from 0.29 to 0.13 in the SMA group (p=0.046), it remained unchanged in the control group. Conclusion These findings suggest that home-based SMA gait training may increase the exercise endurance in people with moderately advanced Parkinson's disease.