Investigating the Effectiveness of an IMU Portable Gait Analysis Device: An Application for Parkinson’s Disease Management

Abstract

As part of two research projects, a small gait analysis device was developed for use inside and outside the home by patients themselves. The project PARMODE aims to record accurate gait measurements in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and proceed with an in-depth analysis of the gait characteristics, while the project CPWATCHER aims to assess the quality of hand movement in cerebral palsy patients. The device was mainly developed to serve the first project with additional offline processing, including machine learning algorithms that could potentially be used for the second aim. A key feature of the device is its small size (36 mm × 46 mm × 16 mm, weight: 14 g), which was designed to meet specific requirements in terms of device consumption restrictions due to the small size of the battery and the need for autonomous operation for more than ten hours. This research work describes, on the one hand, the new device with an emphasis on its functions, and on the other hand, its connection with a web platform for reading and processing data from the devices placed on patients’ feet to record the gait characteristics of patients on a continuous basis.