GaitSense: A Wearable Device to Quantify Gait Health and offer Markers on Freezing of Gait Episodes of Individuals with Parkinson's Disease.

Gait health is a key indicator of physical well-being and quality of life. Individuals with movement disorders, e.g., those with Parkinson's Disease (PD), often exhibit abnormal gait marked by Freezing of Gait (FoG) episodes, which is a debilitating symptom. This manifests itself in terms of variability in one's gait, which can aggravate with an increase in task complexity. In this study, we used GaitSense, a wearable device consisting of shoes with instrumented insoles integrated with Inertial Measurement Units to quantify one's gait in terms of spatial and temporal gait parameters. These gait parameters were subsequently analyzed to evaluate one's stride-to-stride variability which can be a promising marker for the detection of FoG. The results of our study carried out with eight individuals with PD (GroupPD) and eight age-matched healthy counterparts (GroupH) showed the potential of GaitSense to quantify the differences in the gait parameters of GroupPD and GroupH who performed overground walk under Single and Dual-Task conditions. Additionally, increased variability in spatial gait parameters of GroupPD under the Dual-Task condition (captured by GaitSense) highlighted its ability to offer clinically relevant gait metrics. This is because the variability in the spatial gait parameters was found to identify strides demonstrating FoG episodes in individuals with PD. In short, our study offers a steppingstone towards understanding the potential of GaitSense to quantify gait and offer clinically relevant markers on freezing of gait of individuals with Parkinson's Disease.Clinical Relevance- This study with age-matched healthy individuals and those with Parkinson's Disease underlines the potential of GaitSense, a wearable device to quantify one's gait and identify gait-based markers in terms of variability in spatial and temporal parameters of gait that in turn can be used to detect Freezing of Gait episodes of those with PD, thereby offering clinical inputs.