A Smart Shoe System for Gait Analysis and Remote Monitoring in Parkinson's Disease-A Validation Study

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Neurology
• Rehabilitation Technology

Background:

• Continuous gait monitoring is crucial for Parkinson's Disease (PD) management due to disease progression and treatment variability.
• Wearable sensors offer a practical solution for real-world gait assessment, overcoming limitations of laboratory settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To validate spatiotemporal gait parameters from the NUSHU smart shoe system against Vicon motion capture.
• To assess if measurement agreement persists during active vibrotactile feedback in PD patients and healthy adults.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-two participants (17 PD, 15 healthy) completed overground walking trials.
• Trials included no vibration, stance phase vibration, and swing phase vibration conditions.
• Linear mixed effects models analyzed 4790 strides for agreement metrics (ICC, CCC).

Main Results:

• Good agreement was found for stride length (ICC=0.894), stride time (ICC=0.853), and velocity (ICC=0.885).
• Moderate agreement was observed for double support time (ICC=0.752).
• Measurement agreement remained consistent across vibration conditions and between groups.

Conclusions:

• The NUSHU smart shoe system demonstrates acceptable validity for key gait parameters (stride length, time, velocity).
• The system maintains measurement consistency during active vibrotactile feedback.
• NUSHU is a viable tool for continuous, real-world gait monitoring in PD.