Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects a significant portion of the elderly population. Gait disturbance is a core symptom of the disease and can impact stride length and height, gait speed, trunk sway, and the pendular movement of the arms. This impairment is often accompanied by postural alterations, balance difficulties, and an increased risk of falls. Additionally, freezing and festination phenomena may also occur.
Inertial Movement Units are inertial sensors that are used for monitoring clinical and identification of movement biomarkers in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. In particular, among existing devices based on IMUs, prototype versions of SensMode have shown promising results in identifying objective indices to support diagnosis and monitoring in patients with PD. Recent work shows that the aforementioned wearable sensors during some tasks of the MDS-UPDRS have excellent discriminative property between subjects healthy and those with PD.
The aim of the present research project is to investigate the potential of sensors in measuring limb movement in subjects with Parkinson's Disease.