A Technological Review of the Instrumented Footwear for Rehabilitation with a Focus on Parkinson’s Disease Patients

Abstract

In this review article, we summarize systems for gait rehabilitation based on instrumented footwear and present a context of their usage in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients’ auditory and haptic rehabilitation. We focus on the needs of PD patients, but since only a few systems were made with this purpose, we go through several applications used in different scenarios when gait detection and rehabilitation are considered. We present developments of the designs, possible improvements, and software challenges and requirements. We conclude that in order to build successful systems for PD patients’ gait rehabilitation, technological solutions from several studies have to be applied and combined with knowledge from auditory and haptic cueing.

Falling upward with Parkinson’s disease

“…The fear reduces future falls risk by helping people, who commonly misjudge their actual gait ability at older ages, 26 not to overestimate their falls efficacy (ability to maintain their balance) amid their physical limitations. From this perspective, ‘falling is not an error, it is a skill’ 27 that experience of falling can develop to release the intrinsic capability of people to make change with which they feel at ease. As a challenge of adaptive capacity, falls may motivate people with PD to revise care plans, including their medication regimen and home setup, and optimize quality of life.…”

“…Other explanations for their creativity include sublimation and disinhibition, 38 as well as stimulation from treatment for PD. Compared to not living with PD, levodopa, and dopamine agonists, 39 as well as lifestyle activities such as dance, 27 may release and exercise preserved creative potential for goal setting. Independent of impulse control disorders, including dopamine-dysregulation syndrome, 40 the boost to creativity confers potential benefits.…”

“…Independent of impulse control disorders, including dopamine-dysregulation syndrome, 40 the boost to creativity confers potential benefits. It may enable people with PD to improve control over, and coordinate their movement; use continuous adaptive movement to recover intermittent and unexpected losses of balance; confidently manage postural instability; 27 enhance quality of life and support successful aging, including the treatment of comorbid states such as depression. 41 …”

Experimental Evaluation of Vibrotactile Training Mappings for Dual-Joystick Directional Guidance

“…A vibrotactile feedback system has been adopted also in the field of music to teach violin bowing [33]. Moreover, vibrotactile guidance has been studied and applied in the field of rehabilitation, especially for stroke [9] and Parkinsons disease patients [17] as well in gait retraining [1]. Vibrotactile displays have also been implemented to enhance navigation and orientation in both real [35] and virtual environments [15,22].…”

An exploratory clustering approach for extracting stride parameters from tracking collars on free ranging wild animals

“…Changes in stride frequency and length with speed are key parameters in human locomotion research (Maculewicz et al, 2016;Muro-de-la-Herran et al, 2014) and are routinely used in quadruped locomotion research (Heglund and Taylor, 1988;Jayne and Irschick, 2000;Smith et al, 2015;Sue et al, 2011;Witte et al, 2006). Measurement of these parameters enables the locomotor strategy used by an animal to attain a particular speed to be determined.…”