{"title":"Vibrotactile Foot Device for Freezing of Gait in Parkinson's Disease: A Pilot Study.","authors":"Shanshan Cen, Jinghong Ma, Hong Sun, Hui Zhang, Yuan Li, Wei Mao, Erhe Xu, Shanshan Mei, Jagadish K Chhetri, Zheng Ruan, Hui Wang, Kailiang Wang, Piu Chan","doi":"10.1002/mdc3.14177","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Vibrotactile stimulation has been studied in its efficacy of reducing freezing of gait (FOG) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the results are still controversial. We evaluated the efficacy of a newly developed vibrotactile foot device on freezing severity and gait measures in PD patients with FOG.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>To evaluate the efficacy of vibrotactile foot device on PD patients with FOG.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Thirty-three PD patients with FOG were examined during their \"off\" medication state. The efficacy of the vibrotactile foot device was evaluated using a gait protocol comprising walking trials with vibrotactile stimulation \"off\" and \"on.\" Walking trials were videotaped for the offline rating by two movement disorder specialists. The Opal inertial sensor unit (128 Hz; Mobility Lab; APDM Inc., Portland, OR, USA) was used for quantitative gait analysis.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The results demonstrated 33.1% reduction in number of FOG episodes (P < 0.001) and 32.6% reduction of freezing episodes (P < 0.001). Quantitative gait analysis showed a significant increase in step length (P = 0.033). A moderate negative correlation was observed between the change of percent time frozen and age (r = -0.415, P = 0.016). 73% of participants reported minimal to substantial improvement in walking with this vibrating stimulation delivered by the vibrotactile foot device.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The vibrotactile foot device is an efficient device that could significantly reduce freezing severity and provide gait regulation to patients with PD experiencing frequent freezing. It could potentially be used in the home environment for improving the quality of life.</p>","PeriodicalId":19029,"journal":{"name":"Movement Disorders Clinical Practice","volume":" ","pages":"1241-1248"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11489620/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Movement Disorders Clinical Practice","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1002/mdc3.14177","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/8/2 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CLINICAL NEUROLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Vibrotactile stimulation has been studied in its efficacy of reducing freezing of gait (FOG) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, the results are still controversial. We evaluated the efficacy of a newly developed vibrotactile foot device on freezing severity and gait measures in PD patients with FOG.
Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of vibrotactile foot device on PD patients with FOG.
Methods: Thirty-three PD patients with FOG were examined during their "off" medication state. The efficacy of the vibrotactile foot device was evaluated using a gait protocol comprising walking trials with vibrotactile stimulation "off" and "on." Walking trials were videotaped for the offline rating by two movement disorder specialists. The Opal inertial sensor unit (128 Hz; Mobility Lab; APDM Inc., Portland, OR, USA) was used for quantitative gait analysis.
Results: The results demonstrated 33.1% reduction in number of FOG episodes (P < 0.001) and 32.6% reduction of freezing episodes (P < 0.001). Quantitative gait analysis showed a significant increase in step length (P = 0.033). A moderate negative correlation was observed between the change of percent time frozen and age (r = -0.415, P = 0.016). 73% of participants reported minimal to substantial improvement in walking with this vibrating stimulation delivered by the vibrotactile foot device.
Conclusions: The vibrotactile foot device is an efficient device that could significantly reduce freezing severity and provide gait regulation to patients with PD experiencing frequent freezing. It could potentially be used in the home environment for improving the quality of life.
期刊介绍:
Movement Disorders Clinical Practice- is an online-only journal committed to publishing high quality peer reviewed articles related to clinical aspects of movement disorders which broadly include phenomenology (interesting case/case series/rarities), investigative (for e.g- genetics, imaging), translational (phenotype-genotype or other) and treatment aspects (clinical guidelines, diagnostic and treatment algorithms)